James Paice: I refer hon. Members to my interest. There is a real human crisis out there, because farmers face a huge amount of debt, and their suppliers are carrying large amounts of credit that they have extended to farmers who cannot pay. Any money will be welcome, and yesterday's announcement takes us in that direction. Will the Secretary of State tell us what she means by "substantial"? What proportion of farmers' entitlement does she expect to pay? Can she give us an accurate estimate of when those payments will begin? Now that she has had to start making executive decisions herself, does that not prove that she has no confidence Lord Bach, who spent months criticising anyone who forecast this crisis, while failing to grasp the seriousness of the situation? As she has had to intervene now, how can the industry have any confidence in him?

Margaret Beckett: I entirely share the view that the hon. Gentleman expresses. I fully recognise that there is a human crisis in the farming community, and that is why we are doing everything we can to resolve it.
	The hon. Gentleman asked what we envisage as a substantial partial payment. We are working on the basis of roughly 80 per cent. of the claimed amount. I think that that is recognised as being substantial, and substantially helpful. I cannot tell him at the moment when the partial payment system that is being worked on will have been validated and will be able to run. However, if it would be helpful to him and to other hon. Members, particularly Front Benchers and the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the acting chief executive could come to give a briefing with his technical experts. I know that Members will want to raise particular technical issues arising from their experience and the questions of their constituents. The best thing is for them to get those answers from those who are charged with making the day-to-day executive decisions.
	Finally, let me say how much I regret the hon. Gentleman's observations about my noble Friend. I have every confidence in Lord Bach. Had it not been for his assiduous work and continued pressure, we may not even now have had such a clear picture of the scale of the difficulties.

Margaret Beckett: In fact, as I have already said, we do anticipate making all those payments within the window. That is the task on which the RPA is currently engaged. Of course I understand that there is genuine distress, concern and, in many quarters, anger at these difficulties, as well as genuine anxiety for many in the farming community. However, that does not justify looking for a scapegoat in the form of an assiduous and hardworking Minister. I do not believe that Conservative Members, or any other Members, really think that this is Lord Bach's fault or that he should go—they just cannot think of anything else to ask for.

Margaret Beckett: I do not tell the European Commission anything different from the House. The Commission is familiar with events and has been kept informed about the steps that are being taken. Like the House, it has been told that we anticipate making the payments by the end of June.

Anne McIntosh: Is it correct that farming has been singled out uniquely as the only business in receipt of EU funds that must have the amounts published? I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. Are farmers the only people who are taxed on prospective EU funds, which they have not yet been paid?

James McGovern: I assume that the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) tabled the question before the first incidence of avian flu occurred in the UK. Given that it happened in Scotland—the Scottish Executive dealt with it well—it highlighted an interesting division of responsibility between the Scottish Executive and DEFRA. What plans are in place to ensure total co-operation north and south of the border and that any emergency measures, if required, are rolled out smoothly and consistently throughout the UK?

Elliot Morley: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the drought started in November 2004. It is the worst drought in the south-east of England since 1976. There is a range of measures that people can take, and it is important prudently to manage water supplies. That includes taking drought orders if necessary. In the longer term, companies have obligations to have drought plans in place and to produce a 25-year forward programme that takes into account water supply and demand as well as issues such as climate change.

Roger Williams: Further investment in water storage and improved infrastructure maintenance to cut out leaks will be fundamental to addressing this water shortage. I understand, however, that the Government are trialling compulsory metering in some areas. What further plans do the Government have for compulsory metering, and what protection would they put in place for poorer families to prevent them suffering from water poverty?

Margaret Beckett: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that some work to prepare not least for 2006 had to be done on the IT system over the past couple of weeks. That inevitably and regrettably led to a slow down. A reason why I offered the House a technical briefing with the acting chief executive and those who are dealing with those issues was so that Members, all of whom will have particular concerns brought to them by particular constituents, have the opportunity to raise those issues with the RPA, as we are doing, and have a full discussion on a more sustained basis than is possible across the Floor of the House.

Theresa May: I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business for the next two weeks. Will he arrange for the Prime Minister to come to the House and explain his statements about the health service? Yesterday, in Prime Minister's questions, he said:
	"in the Thames Valley strategic health authority area . . . in 1997, more than 2,500 patients waited longer than 13 weeks for their out-patient appointment; today the figure is none."—[Official Report, Wednesday 19 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 116.]
	One of my constituents was watching and was annoyed because she knew that that was not true. On 19 December 2005, her GP asked for an appointment with a specialist at Wexham Park hospital in Slough, part of the Thames Valley strategic health authority area. She was given an appointment for 10 May 2006; not a 13-week wait, but a 20-week wait. The Prime Minister misled the House. When will he come to explain himself?
	As we see yet more job losses in the NHS, hospitals threatened with closure and patients being denied life-improving drugs, people have one simple question: where has all the money gone? Can we have a statement from the Health Secretary explaining the Government's failure on the NHS?
	Figures published yesterday show that one third of post offices have closed in London in the last three years, for example, seven in Beckenham, five in Hammersmith and Fulham, five in Merton and 22 in Croydon. Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that post office closures hit communities hard and allow a debate on the future of post office branches?
	May we have a debate in the next two weeks on the environmental record of local councils and the link between crime and grime? Improving local surroundings can lead to lower crime. Figures show yet again that, of the top five councils for recycling and composting, four are Conservative-controlled, while the fifth is under no overall control. Conservative Richmond has reduced landfill by 20,000 tonnes a year. Conservative Woking has cut its emissions by 77 per cent. since installing its own microgeneration grid and Conservative Enfield's environmental crime unit has clamped down on fly-tipping, graffiti and abandoned vehicles, with incidents falling by 30 per cent. in one year alone. That shows clearly that people who vote blue can go green.
	During that debate, will the Leader of the House arrange for the Chancellor of the Exchequer—who has suddenly become interested in the environment—to come to the House to explain why he announced in his recent Budget a new zero-rate road tax on environmentally friendly cars yet failed to mention that no cars available to buy today in the UK are eligible for it?
	Finally, may we have a debate on how to handle disputes between neighbours? At the last business questions, I wished the Leader of the House a quiet recess. However, I am sorry that he had to spend part of it trying to stop the battle between the Blairites and the Brownites in government. He said that they were
	"damaging the party at this critical time".
	I wonder what the right hon. Gentleman said to his constituency Labour party, which recently voted on when the Prime Minister should resign. I understand that he owns a house in Kennington that has squatters next door: given his experience with unwanted occupiers next door, perhaps he would like to advise the Chancellor on how to remove the squatter in No. 10.

Geoff Hoon: It is important that we have a proper debate about the enormous funding increases that this Government have made available to the NHS and it is right that taxpayers want that money to be spent properly and effectively. The Government are embarked on a fundamental change in the NHS that will be self sustaining and to the benefit of patients. I am confident that the debate will go on in the months ahead and sure that the country as a whole will see the enormous benefits flowing from the extra investment being made in the NHS and from the reform programme that is under way.
	The Government will take no lessons from the Opposition about the NHS. Under the Conservatives, it was a disgrace, as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) knows. She understands that most Conservative party members at that time fundamentally did not believe in the NHS. It will be interesting to see, when we finally get the results of the series of reviews being undertaken by the Conservatives, whether they remain true to their principles and continue to advocate dismantling our national health service.
	The right hon. Lady raises the issue of recycling and Conservative-run councils, but most Labour Members—and, indeed, most parties other than the Conservative party—recognise the degree of recycling of Conservative party policy in the months since its new leader was elected. If the Conservatives are so committed to environmental protection and tackling climate change, why are they so opposed to the climate change levy—the very mechanism that is delivering change, to the benefit of our environment? The right hon. Lady wants to lecture the House on environmental policy, but she should start closer to home by inviting the Leader of the Opposition to explain how wearing a green tie, riding a bicycle and flying to the Arctic circle is a substitute for a serious debate on environmental policy. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is engaged in a serious and substantive debate on how to protect our environment internationally and he is dealing with what I suspect is a pretty tough audience in New York, rather than a handful of journalists on a photo-shoot somewhere inside the Arctic circle.
	On the eligibility of motor vehicles, the right hon. Lady has not understood that what is important is that we set challenging and demanding targets for the motor industry—and, indeed, for the country—in promoting the environment. This issue is more important than simple photo opportunities, which, frankly, are all that the Conservative party can currently offer.

Geoff Hoon: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not get called during Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions. Since they finished only 13 minutes ago, I do not intend to add to the answers that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave when the issue of farm payments was raised with her directly. In future, he might seek the same opportunity to ask questions that is available to all Members of the House.
	On the health service, I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman chooses to use emotive language such as "sacking staff". If he checks, he will find that year on year, the NHS is employing far more people than ever before. This year alone, there has been an increase of about 38,000 in the number employed—[Interruption.] Opposition Members affect amusement at that observation, but surely every Member supports my contention at the outset, which is that a huge amount of public money is being spent on the national health service. That public money needs to be spent effectively and sensibly and, crucially, it needs to be spent on delivering front-line services across the country, on nurses, doctors and consultants. Numbers in each of those professions have increased significantly since 1997. Obviously, it is important that they receive the best back-up in terms of administrative support, but if it is possible to reduce the number of people involved in administration and still deliver an excellent health service, every Member of the House should support that.
	There are lessons to be learned from the particular court case that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and I am confident that we shall do so. It is important, however, that court cases be allowed to proceed independently of political observation and comment.
	I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's observations about our commitment to manufacturing industry; nor would the Government, who are absolutely committed to it. The Government are also committed to supporting the people who work in that industry. Clearly, it is a matter of regret and sadness for those who have been told that they will lose their jobs at Peugeot over a period of time. We would have preferred Peugeot to remain operating in the United Kingdom, manufacturing vehicles, but the British car industry today is an absolute success right across the country. We are producing high-quality cars. In Sunderland, we have the most efficient car plant anywhere in Europe, and there has been a 25 per cent. increase in production at Toyota in Derbyshire. The record of manufacturing in our car industry is outstanding and I should be much more interested in the hon. Gentleman's concern about manufacturing if he had put it in that context.

Michael Connarty: Will my right hon. Friend urge the Government to make a statement to the House—if they are not already planning to do so—on the publication of the document, "Self-sufficiency in blood products in England and Wales: A chronology from 1973 to 1991"? My right hon. Friend has encyclopaedic knowledge of things coming from all Departments, but I am sure that he missed that document. Even the Haemophilia Society only found out that it had been published from a website and had to ask for a copy. I am the chair of the all-party group on haemophilia and I only received a copy, through the Haemophilia Society, in the last few days. The document is strongly criticised by the society for omitting some of the major points that were supposed to be considered—the Government's involvement and omissions at a high level of Government. There was a disaster: 4,800 people were contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1970s and 1980s. Is not it time that we had a statement from the Government and a commitment to a public inquiry into how that scandal occurred?

Geoff Hoon: The right hon. Gentleman is a distinguished Member and knows the conventions that govern constitutional change. The Government have already delivered the first stage of reforming our second chamber. It is important that any second stage continues by consensus. This is not a matter that has traditionally divided the political parties—or not across the Chamber, at any rate—and in those circumstances, I hope that he will bear this time a little more patiently, as we review the way in which we are determined to deliver our manifesto commitment; but that will necessarily take some time.

David Taylor: Just two weeks or so ago, the Chancellor's welcome initiative to fund free off-peak bus travel for pensioners and those with disabilities in local authority boundaries was implemented with great success in most parts of the country, to be rolled out nationally in two years' time. Will the Leader of the House comment on the fact that both Labour-controlled Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire county councils have been able to work with their local authorities to extend that initiative county-wide, which makes sense in many areas, whereas Conservative-controlled Leicestershire county council has not been able to do so? That runs against the Chancellor's intention, does it not? May we have a statement on that?

Geoff Hoon: If that is the case—obviously I am not in a position to say whether it is true at the moment—there is a well used process by which statistical mistakes are corrected. Letters would be written and placed in the Library.

Nadine Dorries: I am not sure whether you are aware of this, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but today the Government have announced that they are to introduce dignity nurses in hospitals. Apparently, that is to stop nurses from shouting at patients, failing to ensure that they are properly fed or clothed and allowing them to soil themselves. Are the Government making a statement on the standard of nursing in hospitals today by calling for that and can we have a long-awaited debate on the NHS to decide whether that scheme is appropriate?

Geoff Hoon: My hon. Friend has consistently pursued the matter over a long period of time. I am not going to trade details with him because I anticipate that he has probably forgotten more about the case than I will ever learn. He is right to raise the important matter. I am sure that the House can discuss and debate it, and if he applies for an Adjournment debate on it, I am absolutely confident that it will be seriously considered.

Grant Shapps: The Leader of the House might be aware that the QEII hospital in my constituency has a £50 million financial deficit. It was announced just last week that it is laying off 500 staff and closing many of its departments, so it might surprise him, as it did me, to find out that one of my constituents sent it a cheque for £15 when he felt bad about missing an appointment with a consultant at the hospital, only to find it returned with a note saying that the hospital did not need the money. We are all in favour of health care being free at the point of use, but can the Leader of the House tell me how on earth we have got into this kind of mess with the health service?

Geoff Hoon: The hon. Gentleman misses from his litany of complaint the quality and number of treatments undertaken by health service hospitals and bodies throughout the country. We want to see experienced health service professionals—nurses, doctors and consultants—delivering the service. We want them to deliver the service with overheads that are as low as can possibly be achieved. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome the fact that the national health service is delivering the treatments and quality of care for which it is rightly famed. It is a success and a cause of congratulation that that is being done more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Iris Robinson: The Leader of the House will be aware that despite the availability of the morning after pill to young teenage girls, numbers of pregnancies are rising, especially among the 13 to 14-year-old age group. Will he make available Government time to debate the impact that the Government's approach is having on young people in particular and society in general, and to allow hon. Members to discuss other ways of discouraging teenagers from becoming sexually active?

Geoff Hoon: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs recently answered a series of detailed questions before the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, so the House has had the opportunity to hear him speak about the present position. Hon. Members will be aware that a police investigation into the matters raised by the hon. Gentleman is under way, so in the circumstances it is not appropriate for me to comment further.

Charles Clarke: With permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a statement about further measures that the Government intend to take to protect the public from dangerous offenders.
	In my statement on 28 February, following the publication of the report by the chief inspector of probation on the appalling murder of John Monckton, I made it clear that, although we have already made improvements to our system for public protection and will continue to do so, we have to do more to improve the way in which we identify and manage dangerous offenders who present a risk to the public. I announced that the Government would accept the main findings and the key recommendations of the chief inspector's report. Today, I have placed in the Library of the House a probation circular that requires chief officers to implement those recommendations and the 31 "practice" recommendations that were set out in the report. Arrangements will be made to audit implementation in July and again in October this year.
	Action on those recommendations is not enough, so I propose to take new powers to enable dangerous and high-risk offenders to be better managed, as well as to strengthen the work of the Parole Board and the probation service. The Government need to provide the framework in which the probation service and other criminal justice agencies can do their job to the highest standards. We have already made changes to the sentencing regime to ensure that dangerous offenders who pose a continuing risk can be detained indefinitely if a court so determines. Those arrangements apply to all eligible offenders who commit offences after the new provisions came into force—that is, offences committed on or after 4 April 2005.
	I have looked very carefully to see how we can increase safeguards in respect of offenders who committed their offences before that date. I considered whether it would be possible to make the more dangerous offenders subject to the new public protection sentences, notwithstanding the date of their offence. I concluded that it would not, as it would violate the principle of retrospective legislation, and the House would be likely to find that unacceptable. However, I consider that three further steps are necessary. First, I have decided to ensure that offenders who have been sentenced to imprisonment for offences committed before 4 April 2005 are on licence from the moment that they are released from custody until the very end of their sentence, rather than to the three-quarters point of their sentence as now. That means that offenders who give cause for concern at any time during the currency of their sentence can be recalled to prison.
	I will introduce that change by means of an order under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which will be laid before the House and the other place as soon as possible. The aim is to focus active supervision on those dangerous offenders who pose the most risk of harm and who will be actively and intensively supervised until the end of their sentence. That step is not enough in itself. There are some offenders who do not cease to be a risk to the public just because their licence has come to an end. Secondly, therefore, we must be able to deal with such offenders. There is a strong case for introducing a violent offender order along the same lines that have proved effective in the case of sex offenders. Such an order would enable the court to make specific prohibitions on offenders who have been convicted of offences of violence, breach of which would be a criminal offence subject to up to five years in prison. I will publish proposals in that area before summer.
	Thirdly, I acknowledge that many dangerous offenders suffer from mental disorder. The plans that we recently announced to amend mental health legislation will help to ensure that mentally disordered offenders receive the treatment that they need and that the risk that they pose to the public is minimised. I am confident that those proposals, together with the reforms that I set out in my five-year strategy for protecting the public and reducing re-offending—in particular, the introduction of a single named-offender manager for all offenders, coupled with my proposals to drive up performance by introducing alternative providers of services and challenging the probation service to demonstrate that it can and does meet the highest standards—will help to improve the way in which dangerous offenders are managed. Of course, no risk can ever be eliminated, but we need to do much better in minimising risks.
	Accurate assessment of risk must lie at the heart of our public protection arrangements. It is essential that staff are clear about their responsibilities and are properly trained. With immediate effect, all chief officers of probation will have a specific objective to improve the quality of risk-of-harm assessments in their area, and they will be required to provide regular reports. In addition, almost all probation middle managers throughout the country—there are about 1,400—have undergone a rigorous training programme to improve the quality of risk-of-harm assessments and the way in which they manage such cases. In June, we will introduce a new training tool further to improve the way in which staff assess and manage risk.
	Still more needs to be done to improve the risk assessment process itself, so I have commissioned the National Offender Management Service risk of harm improvement board to undertake an urgent exercise, with independent input as necessary, to achieve that. I have issued guidance to both prisons and probation staff to highlight the need to avoid over-emphasis on good behaviour in prison and to make progress in addressing dynamic risk factors when assessing risk prior to release. The Parole Board—an independent body charged with the task of deciding whether offenders are safe to be released—has a crucial role to play in assessing risk. New minimum standards for the reports prepared for the Parole Board have been introduced and new monitoring arrangements came into force at the beginning of the month. Urgent work is in hand to ensure that the board has available to it all the relevant information that it needs to ensure that its decisions are well founded.
	In addition to these measures, the chairman of the Parole Board has also informed me of his plans to appoint senior and well respected independent figures to the panel that reviews cases involving serious further offences, to ensure that lessons are properly identified and learned. I welcome this move, too.
	More generally, it is the role of all agencies within the criminal justice system to prioritise public protection through partnership working, which is why Her Majesty's inspectors of probation, prisons and constabulary are conducting a joint thematic inspection of the effectiveness of public protection arrangements. I will report back to the House on any further recommendations that stem from this report when it is published this summer.
	Taken together, I believe these measures represent an important step forward in protecting the public. Implementation of the improvement package will be overseen by my noble Friend the Minister of State for Criminal Justice and Offender Management. I commend the proposals to the House.

David Davis: I thank the Home Secretary for early sight of his statement. Much of what he said is welcome and constructive. However, it is the first duty of the Government to protect the public, and clearly they and their actions have not protected the public on too many occasions in recent times. Failure of Government policy has been a contributing factor in the tragic deaths of Marian Bates, John Monckton, Robert Symons and Mary-Ann Leneghan, among others—all murdered by criminals on early release, parole or probation.
	It is no surprise that the Government are announcing the order this week, just before the killers of Mary-Ann Leneghan are sentenced and a report on the murder of Naomi Bryant, which is expected to be extremely damning, is published. This is the latest in a series of tough-sounding measures that the Home Secretary has announced this week, which are designed to catch the headlines and pre-empt the reports of the Government's failure.
	The problem that the Home Secretary's new order seeks to address is largely of the Government's own making. It has been the Government's policy to release dangerous offenders into the community on early release. The Daily Mail reports the chief inspector of probation as saying that there are 15,000 offenders on probation who are assessed as representing a high or a very high risk of causing harm to others.
	It was the Government who cut the Parole Board's budget for face-to-face interviews by 90 per cent. two years ago. Yusuf Bouhaddaou, who murdered Robert Symons just five weeks after being released from prison, was released with no face-to-face interview. Instead, he had just a 25-minute telephone conversation with the probation service.
	It was the Government who introduced OASYS, the offender assessment system that the National Association of Probation Officers has described as "poorly designed", with its prime purpose being to
	"produce data for the Home Office, rather than analysing the behaviour of offenders".
	If we look at each of the appalling murders committed by offenders on probation, early release and parole—Mary-Ann Leneghan, John Monckton, Marian Bates, Robert Symons and others—one point is clear: if the offenders had been in prison, those crimes would not have been committed.
	So what are the Government proposing to address their own failures? Although, astonishingly, the Home Secretary did not mention it in his statement, pre-briefing by the Home Office stated that they would increase the number of face-to-face interviews prior to release to 30 per cent. Is that true? Even if it is, an astonishing 70 per cent. of prisoners will still not have a face-to-face interview before release. What extra resources is the Home Secretary providing to the probation service, which we are told is already overstretched? Will he increase the interview budget, which was cut by 90 per cent. two years ago?
	The Home Secretary says he wants to impose restrictions on violent offenders and, presumably, ban them from approaching certain people or places, but prisoners released under the home detention curfew scheme have committed over 7,000 further offences already. In 2004–05 alone, 224 offenders on probation were convicted of further serious offences, including 26 murders—I repeat, 26 murders. A criminal who is willing to murder or to commit armed robbery or burglary will not be put off by some sort of super-ASBO. If 42 per cent. of antisocial behaviour orders are ignored by young tearaways, how effective will the so-called super-ASBOs be against psychopathic hardened criminals? If the Government cannot make the sex offenders register work properly, how safe should the public feel after this latest headline-grabbing initiative?
	The Government's proposals fail to address the real problems in the probation service, which is in desperate need of effective leadership and management from the Government. What does the Home Secretary have to say to Harry Fletcher of the National Association of Probation Officers, who says that the probation service is already poorly resourced and massively overstretched? [Interruption.] The Home Secretary laughs. Damien Hanson, who murdered John Monckton, was assessed as being 91 per cent. likely to re-offend, yet he was released halfway through a 12-year sentence for attempted murder. The Home Secretary's proposal fails to address the underlying problems in the probation service that allowed that to happen. Is he proposing any further legislation with respect to the National Offender Management Service, which remains only half-reformed?
	The Government have failed to address the problem of prison overcrowding, which means that prisoners are not getting the rehabilitation that they require. How do the Government intend to solve that problem? Let us be clear. The latest spate of murders is just the latest symptom of a major failure in the criminal justice system—a failure by the Government of policy, strategy, leadership and management. The measures smack of a policy designed primarily to relieve the pressure on overcrowded prisons, rather than protecting the public. With 15,000 dangerous offenders back on our streets, let us hope it does not result in yet more victims of crime and yet more families devastated by murder.

Charles Clarke: The right hon. Gentleman started well by saying that he welcomed the proposal and wished to be constructive about it. His allegations are demeaning and misleading. Let us go through the points in detail.
	The right hon. Gentleman's first allegation was that the announcement was some sort of initiative to catch the headlines, rather than a substantive measure to address the issue. As I said in my statement and as he should have had the grace to acknowledge, immediately upon the announcement of the verdict in the Monckton case, which had the appalling results that he described in the case of Hanson, I asked the chief inspector of probation to go through in detail what was done wrong in relation to that case and how to put it right. I published that report extremely rapidly, and I announced today that we are carrying through in specified ways measures to stop what the right hon. Gentleman correctly defines as a terrible, appalling case, the Hanson case, happening again.
	Secondly, at the time that I announced the outcome of the Bridges report, I said that despite its recommendations, which were important and would be implemented, it necessarily fell short in certain important respects, and I would return to the House, as I am doing today, to say what further steps we would take. To suggest that this is some kind of spun response is demeaning and unworthy of the right hon. Gentleman.
	There are three core issues. In each area we have made major improvements since the time of the Government with whom the right hon. Gentleman served and held office. First, with regard to the sentencing regimes, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 established the means, which did not exist under the Government of whom he was a member, of controlling people sentenced under that regime who are dangerous to society, and at any point recalling to prison people who are dangerous to the public. That does not solve problems arising from sentences before 2003, but it is a major advance which will make a difference. Today we are announcing further measures to deal with people sentenced before that time.
	Secondly, on the risk assessment regime, it is critical that professionals can assess the risks associated with individuals who commit appalling crimes, but the right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong in his demeaning remarks about OASYS and the multi-agency public protection arrangements. It is an internationally recognised system, which is being introduced in a way that was never considered by his Government. It is improving the system and will improve it further, to deal with the issues properly. That is what we are doing and what he never did.
	Thirdly, once the assessment has been carried out, the question arises how we properly manage people thought to be a risk in those circumstances. Once again, we are introducing major changes to do that, including focusing the professional resource of probation staff on those who are most dangerous, which is why we will publish further legislation on the contestability agenda as I described. My comment to Harry Fletcher and the National Association of Probation Officers, whom the right hon. Gentleman entertainingly chucks into the discussion, is that resources are important and that we have put more resources in—much more than under his Government—but change and reform to the way we run our probation system are also important. We make the changes to protect the public better. That is what we are committed to do.

Nicholas Clegg: I also thank the Home Secretary for his courtesy in providing an advance copy of the statement. There is no easy solution to the problems that we face, and Liberal Democrat Members will support any constructive or workable proposals to improve public safety against the actions of dangerous offenders. The Home Secretary will remember that we supported the Government in 2003, when they sought to create a new indefinite sentence for the most dangerous individuals, and I agree with his acknowledgment today that the new powers cannot be used retrospectively.
	I broadly welcome the package of alternative measures outlined in the Home Secretary's statement. The proposal to extend post-custody supervision for those sentenced before April 2005 is particularly welcome, as are all attempts to improve the assessment of risk. According to Andrew Bridges, the chief inspector of probation, only 20 per cent. of offenders who go on to commit serious offences while on parole were assessed as being high risk.
	The statement leaves two questions unanswered. First, is the new system of early release really providing the maximum protection for the public? In the debates in this House during the passage of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the rules on early release were changed in the teeth of opposition from both Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members. Before the implementation of the 2003 Act, the Parole Board had discretion whether to release long-term prisoners at the 50 per cent. point of their sentence and, if there was a reasonable concern about public safety, release could be delayed until the two-thirds point. The 2003 Act removed that discretion from the Parole Board. In view of the cases that have been cited today, will the Home Secretary agree to review that change?
	Secondly, how much will the increase in supervision cost, and how many additional probation officers will be needed? A key problem faced by probation staff and by those involved in multi-agency public protection arrangements is how to apportion scarce resources, which is compounded in turn by a desperately overcrowded prison system in which staff often do not have time to assess individuals properly. What will the Home Secretary do to tackle the severe underlying problems of an overcrowded prison system and an overloaded probation service?
	We will, of course, respond constructively and in detail to the Home Secretary's proposals on violent offender orders later in the summer. Will the Home Secretary assure the House that before that step is taken there will be a proper evaluation of the success of sexual offences prevention orders, which would appear to be the model that the Home Secretary has in mind?

Charles Clarke: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his broad welcome to our proposals. I appreciate his constructive approach, and I shall deal with his points in the order in which he raised them.
	I have said that I will publish proposals on the violent offender order before the summer because I want precisely to evaluate the way in which the sex offender regime has worked and to examine any good points. I assure the hon. Gentleman that a proper evaluation will take place.
	The hon. Gentleman is right to say that early release should be reviewed in the context of the proposals, and I am discussing the issue with the Parole Board and others. He will recall that the system that we have established was an attempt to focus on the greatest danger to the community, which is our precise ambition for the five-year strategy and the contestability agenda. This may be asking too much, but perhaps he will consider constructively our proposals in that area, which are designed to ensure that the professionalism of the probation service is focused on the areas in which it can be most accurately applied.
	On costs and prison overcrowding, which are extremely serious issues, more resources are needed for training and support on the difficult decisions that highly professional staff have to take—in general, staff make those decisions very successfully. Within the probation and prison system, which needs to be well led and managed, we need to focus existing resources on the most challenging cases, which will require some of the changes that I have described. A range of different measures is needed to address those questions rather than simply more resources.

Chris Bryant: I welcome the Home Secretary's announcements today and hope that they will lead to greater protection for the public, not least because it must surely be wrong that the system has put the public at unnecessary risk in a series of individual cases.
	Turning to psychiatric provision, most psychiatrists would say that paranoid schizophrenia, which leads to much of the violent psychotic behaviour that we are discussing, has no known effective and reliable treatment. Can one imprison somebody for a crime that they might possibly commit? Can we make a realistic judgment whether someone is mad or bad, and how can we reliably introduce such judgments into the criminal justice system?

Charles Clarke: The answer is that such judgments are very difficult, but existing mental health legislation allows us to make them in some cases. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will introduce carefully prepared legislation on that matter later this year, and I hope that it will provide the protection mentioned by my hon. Friend. The 2003 Act contains a power indefinitely to detain people who are a danger to the public, which also relates to his point. The core point is that we must acknowledge the difficulty of identifying the people who really pose a risk. We should not imply that that task is easy or routine, because it is exceptionally difficult and demands professionalism from those involved. We must encourage and support that professionalism and learn how better to conduct the task.

Robert Wilson: As the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) has said, four of the six men who brutalised, tortured and murdered my constituent, Mary-Ann Leneghan, were under the supervision of the criminal justice system, which ultimately betrayed her. The Home Secretary is proposing "to take new powers to enable dangerous and high risk offenders to be better managed as well as to strengthen the work of the Parole Board and the probation service". I welcome the moves to strengthen the Parole Board and the probation service, but my constituents want to know whether dangerous criminals will be locked up, which would be a fitting epitaph for Mary-Ann Leneghan and reassure her family.

Charles Clarke: The short answer to that question is yes. However, I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has acknowledged that a number of measures are required. We must ensure that the current procedures are carried out properly. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) rightly said about the Monckton murder, there is clear evidence in that case and, I think, the Mary-Ann Leneghan case that the procedures that should have been followed properly were not followed properly, which led to tragic consequences. That state of affairs is scandalous, and it is being addressed by the measures that I have set out. Above and beyond that, there is the question whether the procedures and approaches are appropriate in such cases and whether we need to change and improve performance—I believe that we do, which is why I have made my statement today. Finally, there is the question how to deal with people whom we deem to be dangerous. The 2003 Act allows us to take the action that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, and the measures that I have set out today will strengthen our capacity in that area.

Andrew MacKay: Can the Home Secretary now answer the important question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis)—namely, why is it that in 90 per cent. of cases, potentially dangerous criminals who are leaving prison do not have a one-to-one, face-to-face interview, and when will that change?

Charles Clarke: I do not think that the figure is as high as 90 per cent., but I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has given me the chance to answer the question. There are two issues: first, face-to-face interviews with probation officers as people leave prison; and secondly, face-to-face interviews by the Parole Board as it makes its decisions about what to do. It is our policy to ensure face-to-face interviews with probation for all people coming up for parole. That does not always happen, as the right hon. Gentleman says, but our policy is to reach 100 per cent.
	As for the Parole Board panel's assessment of particular individuals, there has been some controversy over the past two or three years about the extent to which face-to-face interviews should take place. Some of that is based on professional grounds as to whether it is the best way of dealing with the case, and some of it is based on resources grounds. I discussed this some weeks ago with Sir Duncan Nichol, the chairman of the Parole Board. I said that I want to be clear about the professional basis, and then whatever resources are necessary will be made available to the Parole Board to do what needs to be done.
	On the first point—interviews with probation as people leave prison—the right hon. Gentleman is entirely correct. We are taking the 100 per cent. route, but there is a journey to travel, although it is not as far as he says. Parole Board interviews are a matter of professional judgment about the right way to make those assessments, with face-to-face interviews being part of that process.

Vincent Cable: While I accept the Home Secretary's basic point that reform and resources need to go together, cannot he give even a ballpark estimate of the additional resources that will be available to the probation service to deal with the additional tasks required of it, particularly given that the Chancellor's projections and priorities suggest that there will be a real-terms cut in future Home Office spending?

(Clauses 1 to 7, 10 to 12, 19 to 22 and Schedule 2, and any new clauses and schedules other than those relating to Parts 2 or 4)
	Considered in Committee.

Lady Hermon: I beg to move amendment No. 30, page 13, line 41, leave out 'and justice'.
	It is a delight to be back in the Chamber to discuss the Bill and I am sure that the Minister shares those sentiments. He had a lively and enjoyable time yesterday, so I am sure he was impatient to get today's business under way.
	Clause 19 is the central feature of the Bill and proposes the devolution of policing and justice to Northern Ireland. It was the measure's original core, around which all the other miscellaneous elements have been wrapped to give the clause some cover and the Bill some substance.
	As drafted, the clause is curious because it provides that
	"if an Act of the Assembly . . . establishes a new Northern Ireland department and . . . the purpose of the Department is to exercise functions consisting wholly or mainly of devolved policing and justice functions",
	there will be two options. If the Assembly decides that policing and justice is to be devolved to it, the clause proposes that either two Ministers "acting jointly" should look after only one Department or that one Minister with a junior Minister should do it and rotate every six months.
	I would dearly appreciate an explanation from the Minister of how we have reached the presumption that there will be only one Department.

Lady Hermon: I am exceedingly grateful to the Minister for that helpful intervention.
	As that matter seems to be resolved, let us think about the long term. If policing functions were devolved to a Department—or two Departments, if the Assembly so chose—what would be the implications for the Policing Board? The board was the creation of the Patten committee and its report, and in the absence of an Assembly with devolved policing functions it was given political accountability by MLAs serving on it. However, in a new scenario in which policing is devolved to the Assembly—I hope that we shall see that one day—I presume that there will be a committee of Assembly Members to scrutinise policing. The Minister—or perhaps the two Ministers—will therefore be accountable to, and have their actions scrutinised by, that committee. What long-term impact would that have on the Policing Board and its composition? I would appreciate an answer from the Minister, who seems to have addressed the other issues. Will it be up to the Assembly to establish whether one or two Departments are involved? Will policing and justice powers be devolved at the same time, or will one be devolved ahead of the other?

David Hanson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. In principle, devolution will be undertaken when the Assembly wants it, when the Government agree to it and when the House of Commons votes for it. The Assembly has the freedom to consider whatever model it wishes, and the Bill will add models to those set out in the 1998 Act for the Assembly's consideration. The position of the Policing Board needs to be examined, and the future of any Assembly committee overseeing policing will need to be considered in the light of the important role played by the board.
	I can confirm that d'Hondt will be the method used for the single Minister option, if that is chosen. I hope that that answers the question put by the hon. Member for Belfast, East.

Lady Hermon: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that useful intervention, and I am delighted that he has put on record that the misspelling of my name worried him so much that it caused him a sleepless night—

Mark Durkan: I have listened to the hon. Lady's comments on her proposed amendment, and to her concern about the implications for the role of the Policing Board and its possible duplication by a departmental committee. Would her amendment not compound the problem? If the only role of the Department and the committee was to oversee policing and not wider justice issues, the problem that she describes would definitely arise.

Laurence Robertson: I beg to move amendment No. 18, page 14, line 4, at end insert—
	'( ) The Act may provide for the department to be in the charge of the First and Deputy First Minister acting jointly.'.

Alan Haselhurst: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 19, page 14, line 5, at end insert—
	'(aa) for the department to be in the charge of the First and Deputy First Minister supported by junior Ministers;'.

Laurence Robertson: These are also probing amendments The Bill as it stands allows for the Assembly to provide that the new police and justice department be in the charge of two Northern Ireland Ministers acting jointly or a Northern Ireland Minister supported by junior Ministers, and for them to rotate. My amendments would give the Assembly the power to provide for the Department to be in the charge of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister acting jointly and/or the First Minister and Deputy First Minister supported by junior Ministers.
	The reasoning behind the amendments is twofold. First, the Department will be of such importance that putting it in the charge of the most senior Ministers in Northern Ireland should rightly be an option. Secondly, that kind of arrangement could provide cross-community control of policing and justice with all the necessary checks and balances in place. I feel that that would have the potential to give at least some confidence to both communities.
	I will not press the amendments to a vote, and I will not detain the Committee long on them. The option was in the discussion paper circulated a while ago, and I was a little surprised that it did not find its way into the Bill. Since the amendments were tabled, the Minister has been kind enough to assure me that it is also covered in the 1998 Act. I would like his assurance that the situation that I describe is a possibility should policing and justice be devolved.

Mark Durkan: I note that the amendments are probing. Obviously, were they included in the Bill, they would make the devolved policing and justice powers part of the portfolio of the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. I know that that was one of the options on the menu that might be considered in party discussions, but I can advise Members, as someone who has served in the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, that it would be a most unwelcome and unhelpful arrival in that Department. It would not assist the competent performance of the Department at large, and it would add unduly to the burden of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister and handicap the good conduct of those devolved responsibilities.
	I do not fret about the absence of that option. The significance of the Bill setting out some options is that it raises questions: if such matters are to be the subject of agreement by the parties, does not it make sense to ask the parties to have those discussions, reach agreement and then legislate on known outcomes? We have seen some of the folly and futility of legislating for all sorts of potential options, which then turn out not to be needed and to be withdrawn subsequently or overtaken by other legislation.
	I note that the d'Hondt option is available for appointing a First Minister and Deputy First Minister, or the Assembly can decide not to appoint by the d'Hondt system. Of course, under the Bill, that decision would be entirely under the control of Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist party—no doubt a marriage made in heaven. They, through their control of the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and of the voting mechanism proposed in the Bill, would determine that entirely. An option of joint Ministers and rotating junior Ministers is given, but no option is given for the Assembly to say that it will be outside the d'Hondt system and that the Assembly will elect, through cross-community support, a single Minister. In discussions, the parties might agree that they want to go for that option. The House could therefore find itself having to legislate for another option in future, unless, of course, there has been prior agreement on some of the options under consideration.
	Many of us have questions about that. Martin McGuinness tells us that the whole question of how and what things were to be transferred was done and dusted in the negotiations leading up to the so-called comprehensive agreement of December 2004. With regard to the comments of the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson), we know that we did not see everything that was agreed in the comprehensive agreement of December 2004, because the documents published were accompanied by up to 100 different side-notes, letters and clarifications. Does that cover some of how devolution of justice and policing was to be handled and transacted? Does it mean that there has been a prior agreement involving Sinn Fein and the DUP about some of the models? If not, surely the likelihood is that we will face new legislation to provide for what is agreed in the future? If Democratic Unionist Members are going to tell us that none of that is agreed, and none of it will matter, why is the Committee being asked to pass this legislation?
	The answer, as I said on Second Reading, is that we are being asked to deal with parts of the Bill that are something between a figment and a fig leaf. They are in the Bill to create a pretence that it is securing as a fact the devolution of justice and policing, so that Sinn Fein can pretend that there has been some significant new gain or development and then modify its position and language on policing. The fact is that the power to devolve justice and policing already exists. It is in the 1998 Act. The Bill only gives us options as to the furniture arrangement for the devolution of justice and policing. It does not take us substantively on to the devolution of justice and policing.
	In fact, some of the models proposed in the Bill could delay delivery of the devolution of justice and policing, as, contrary to how Sinn Fein will present the passing of the legislation, the mechanisms in the Bill—which Democratic Unionist Members indicated they did not see—effectively provide a multiple lock on any prospect of the transfer of justice and policing, as well as on who can be appointed. We will make further points about that on future clauses.

Peter Robinson: I am happy to follow your advice, Sir Alan, because I think that we were moving beyond not just the scope of the amendment, but the scope of historical fact. The revision of history by the hon. Member for Foyle is perhaps best left to one side.
	Whatever the Committee does today will not bring the day when policing and justice powers are devolved in Northern Ireland one moment closer. No decision by the House of Commons will provide the enabling powers; the decision will be made only when the people of Northern Ireland are apprised of the method of devolving the policing and justice powers and of whom they will be devolved to. That is an essential issue, which is dealt with in later amendments.
	We are not afraid of enabling powers, provided there is some democratic control over the enabling process. We have tabled a new clause, because the Minister will doubtless wish to honour the private undertaking—no doubt the hon. Member for Foyle would describe it as a side deal—that he gave us when he met my right hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) and other colleagues in a Committee Room of the House. He assured us then that there was no mischief in the fact that a crucial safeguard had been deleted from the legislation. The Government have made no attempt to restore that safeguard by means of an amendment, however, and we shall want to discuss that later as well.
	I understand that this is a probing amendment, and I am satisfied that the menu to which the hon. Member for Foyle referred is as expansive as possible, although, like the hon. Gentleman—but for entirely different reasons—I am not sure that involving the First and Deputy First Ministers is the most appropriate way of dealing with it. It is in the nature of policing and justice, especially policing, that it must be possible to make decisions on the spot when circumstances require it and the public interest demands it. A First and a Deputy First Minister acting jointly will need a longer time in which to make decisions. If the amendment did not just make provision but contained a requirement, I would have some misgivings about the ability of a First and a Deputy First Minister acting jointly to make decisions in the time required on crucial issues that would have an impact on public safety.
	The hon. Member for Foyle seemed to think that the office of the First and Deputy First Ministers was so overworked that the additional massive burden would be too much for them to carry. In fact, when the devolved Assembly was operating and we had a First and Deputy First Minister, they were foraging everywhere for work. They had so little to do that they were sticking their noses in other Departments, and removing and duplicating what was being done there. I have no doubt, therefore, that the office would have the capacity to take on more work.

Peter Robinson: I would be content to exchange not just the First Minister but our whole Assembly for the Scottish Parliament. Our First Minister in Northern Ireland spent about 80 per cent. of his time trying to keep his party together, never mind the country.
	I recognise that the option may be withdrawn, but I do not believe that any of these provisions will be sufficient to secure the devolution of policing and justice. Further legislation will undoubtedly be required, because there are weaknesses and gaps in the existing legislation.
	I assure the hon. Member for Foyle that no deals have been done with the Government or any other party in relation to my party's participation in any Assembly, any Executive or any devolved institutions including policing and justice. No agreement has been made on those aspects. I greatly doubt that, in my lifetime, we shall ever see circumstances in which they could be devolved, although I should be happy if that were possible.
	One suggestion that I did make was that if there were a single Department with a single Minister and if it could be bid for under d'Hondt, my party, being the largest party, would secure that office. That would be a way forward for Northern Ireland, and if other parties are willing to consider it we shall be happy to oblige.

David Hanson: The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government have given previous commitments that devolution of policing and criminal justice will happen. The Bill sets the framework for that. Part of the 1998 Act relates to that framework. As the Minister now, I am saying to the Committee, as we said on Second Reading, that, if at some point in the future, when the Assembly is reconstituted—as I hope that it will be by November—and if it wishes to have devolved to it criminal justice and policing, if the Secretary of State wishes to agree to that and if the House of Commons supports it, devolution will take place.
	I can confirm that it is possible under the 1998 Act to do what the amendment seeks to do, and I recommend that the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) withdraws his amendment.

Lady Hermon: I beg to move amendment No. 31, in clause 19, page 14, line 12, at end insert—
	'(4A) No person shall be appointed as Minister or Junior Minister of a Department to exercise functions consisting wholly or mainly of devolved policing and justice functions pursuant to this section if he has—
	(a) been convicted of a criminal offence and had a sentence of imprisonment imposed whether suspended or not; or
	(b) failed to make a declaration to the Assembly of unequivocal support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (incorporating the Royal Ulster Constabulary).'.

Lady Hermon: It is essential that the amendment be included in clause 19. It may be helpful for hon. Members if I read it out, because I am sure that many hon. Members will wish to speak to it. It says:
	"No person shall be appointed as Minister or Junior Minister of a Department to exercise functions consisting wholly or mainly of devolved policing and justice functions pursuant to this section if he—
	or presumably she—
	"has—
	(a) been convicted of a criminal offence and had a sentence of imprisonment imposed whether suspended or not; or—
	this is an important alternative—
	(b) failed to make a declaration to the Assembly of unequivocal support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (incorporating the Royal Ulster Constabulary).'.
	That last phrase is, of course, the proper title of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, as established by the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000.
	I am sure that Members throughout the Committee agree with me that it would be inconceivable that a Home Secretary or a Minister for Justice should have a criminal record that has involved a prison sentence, whether suspended or not. The wording has been carefully drafted to refer not just to small, technical although serious criminal convictions. Traffic offences can certainly be very serious indeed. It refers to criminal offences that carry with them a sentence of imprisonment, whether suspended or not.
	As I say, it is inconceivable that a Minister for Justice or a Minister for Home Affairs in Northern Ireland with responsibility for policing and justice should have a criminal record. It is also inconceivable that such a Minister should not give their absolute unwavering support to the Police Service of Northern Ireland in the courageous work that they undertake.
	I am always reminded by the Government and by the Prime Minister when he visits Northern Ireland of the key words "building trust and confidence" among the community in Northern Ireland. Having had 30-plus years of absolute mayhem in which more than 3,000 people have lost their lives in hideous and horrible circumstances and many thousands have been seriously injured and will carry those wounds both psychological and physical for the rest of their days, the words "trust and confidence" must mean something rather than be simple words poured out by the Prime Minister and a series of Secretaries of States and Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office. "Trust and confidence" means that those who take a very responsible office in charge of policing or justice as a junior Minister or a more senior Minister, whether it is a rotating option every six months or a joint ministerial appointment, must meet the terms of the amendment. It is essential that the amendment is incorporated into the Bill.

Mark Durkan: The parties who were present in the negotiation, Sir Alan. I can advise the hon. Gentleman that the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson)—his own party colleague now—was prominently involved in the precise decision that in no way should we have arrangements that would allow other parties to vet or veto anybody else's choice of Minister. We took that decision because to create such powers would force parties to use the power to vet or veto other people's choice of Minister. The hon. Gentleman was clear on that and I remember being directly involved in negotiations in that context with him. I remember it clearly, although I am sure that he tries to forget it.

Sammy Wilson: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentioned homophobia. He may recall that his party led the charge to ensure that someone who had been accused and convicted of making homophobic remarks was taken off, not as a Minister of justice, nor even as a member of the Policing Board, but as a member of a lowly district policing partnership. If such remarks exclude a person from being a member of a DPP, why not from being a Minister of justice?

Lady Hermon: The hon. Gentleman mentioned a charter of human rights and I know that, later this afternoon, we shall come to amendments in his name that relate to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the increased powers proposed for it by his party. His party claims to support human rights, of which the right to life is the most fundamental. How can it reconcile appointing a justice or policing Minister who may well have snuffed out and taken the life of another person with showing respect for human rights?

Mark Durkan: I take the hon. Lady's point. Many people are suspected of exactly the sort of crime that she is talking about, but have no conviction. It may well be possible for somebody whom many people believe has committed such a crime to be appointed a Minister. They would not be disqualified by her amendment, which relates purely to a conviction and imprisonment, so there is no contradiction in our position in relation to upholding human life as the most fundamental human right.
	A further reason why I oppose the amendment is that it may have unforeseen applications. If someone is to make a declaration to the Assembly of unequivocal support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, some of us could argue that the Ulster Unionist party now is potentially showing equivocal support. It has a semi-detached position in relation to its membership of the Policing Board. It has some sort of observer status. The UUP members in Belfast are still not sitting on the district policing partnership as part of their continuing protest at police practices in relation to the Whiterock parade—an occasion when the police face violent and vicious attack. Rather than condemning those attacks first and foremost, many Unionist representatives sought to condemn the police, the Parades Commission and the Secretary of State. For many of us that raises the question how truly those parties are upholding the rule of law and supporting the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Mark Durkan: I was clear in the recollection that I shared with the Committee on the negotiation of the d'Hondt mechanism. At no point did I say that the hon. Gentleman advocated that people with convictions should be appointed Ministers. I said that he, as one of the negotiators then for the UUP, was clear in accepting the d'Hondt mechanism and that it would be wrong to have a means whereby parties could be seen to be vetting or vetoing—we used those words at the time—each other's ministerial appointments. I can recollect further, but I do not want to embarrass him by doing so now. I can share recollections with him outside. I have a colourful recollection of that particular point in the negotiations and his prominent and, I believed at the time, constructive involvement in it.

Laurence Robertson: We are discussing the devolution of policing and justice to the Northern Ireland Assembly, as and when it is up and running. There is much concern on both sides of the House that there is a possibility that the responsibility for such important matters could fall into the wrong hands.
	At a recent meeting with the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, I was told about the fears that members of that organisation felt at the prospect of the Assembly controlling policing and justice. I understand that those fears have been communicated to the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Woodward).
	The amendments in my name—Nos. 21 and 22, and new clauses 3 and 4—address those fears, and would go some way to easing them. They would ensure that people should not be able to take ministerial office in Northern Ireland unless they make a declaration, before the Assembly, that they support the Police Service of Northern Ireland and that they pledge to uphold the rule of law.
	Amendments Nos. 21 and 22 would amend paragraph 8 of schedule 2 to this Bill, which states:
	"The relevant Ministers . . . shall not take up office until each of them has affirmed the . . . pledge of office".
	That pledge includes a commitment to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means.
	Given that we are seeking to devolve policing and justice, it does not seem to me to be asking a lot for potential Ministers to affirm their support for the police. The extra requirement in the amendment is a very minor adjustment, and I should have thought that its inclusion should be axiomatic. Although it might seem a small step to me, I accept that it might seem a large one to some people, yet it would give at least some confidence to members of those political parties in Northern Ireland that show no reluctance about supporting the police and upholding the rule of law that people seeking to hold office would have the appropriate objectives. In other words, the amendments would add to the pledge of office a commitment to support the police. I think that that is reasonable.
	New clause 3 would amend section 18 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to ensure that people appointed as Ministers have declared before the Assembly that they also support the police and uphold the rule of law. New clause 4 would amend section 30 of the 1998 Act to allow for the exclusion from office of any person who is no longer committed to supporting the police and upholding the rule of law. It would also provide for the exclusion from office of members of any political party that is no longer committed to supporting the police and upholding the rule of law. Finally, it would empower the Secretary of State to require the presiding officer to move a motion in the Assembly excluding people from office if they or their party do not support the police or uphold the rule of law.
	I do not see why there should be a great deal of difficulty with the amendments. I heard what the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said, and I agree with much of it, although I draw a different conclusion. If we leave matters as they are, I understand that there will be stumbling blocks to the devolution of policing and justice, and that more or less the same stumbling blocks would obstruct getting the Assembly up and running in the first place.
	I want the Assembly to be up and running, but first we must address the real and legitimate fears of the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland. One fear is that Ministers will come to office who are not persuaded that they should follow exclusively peaceful means. Another is that some members of the Assembly might be Ministers by day and terrorists—if I may use that word—by night.
	Those are real fears, and the Government must put pressure on the appropriate people. We have had many debates, in the House and in Committee, and as I said yesterday the Minister of State has been unfailingly courteous. I cannot remember one occasion when he has refused an intervention, and I am sure that he will agree that members of all parties that have taken part in the debates have behaved in a very reasonable and constructive way.
	However, one party has not taken part—Sinn Fein. The blame for the fact that the Assembly does not sit should be placed, not on the constitutional parties that sit in this House, but on the party that does not appear here, and on the IRA. If the Minister accepts the amendments, that would go some way towards addressing the real and legitimate fears expressed many times in the House by the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland.

Stephen Pound: I apologise: not only is the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) known to have one of the best legal brains in the House, she is also unfailingly courteous and charming, and I understand the motivation behind her amendment. However, I have no such inhibition about amendment No. 22, in the name of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson).
	With her amendment No. 31, the hon. Member for North Down has moved the debate on from the minutiae of who did what to whom, in what guise and wearing what colours on a Good Friday late in the previous century. Instead, the amendment focuses on the core question of what we are trying to achieve today.
	This is the second day of debate on this Bill. Yesterday, we heard one of the most extraordinary statements ever uttered in this House, when the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said
	"£1.7 million does not buy an awful lot these days"—[Official Report, 19 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 171.]
	We have gone from the depths of that comment to the heights of the points made by the hon. Members for North Down and for Tewkesbury, and various others. The key question is: can a democracy flourish or even function if some of the people in the democratic process have pasts that might be bloody and bitter, and whose lives have been lived in opposition to the principle of democracy?
	It would be otiose for me to make the obvious point that, if the sort of filter or block that is proposed in the amendment had been imposed in the past, people such as George Washington, Jan Smuts, Menachem Begin and Nelson Mandela would never have held office. As it happens, all four held the highest office in their respective nations, and did so with distinction.
	Some may say that there is a difference between a declared war and the sort of activity that we are talking about. That would be true in the case of three of the people whom I mentioned, but in one case it would not.

Gregory Campbell: The issue has been raised of past miscreants who engaged in criminal activity perhaps becoming, for example, justice Ministers in Northern Ireland. Such people may currently support illegality and criminality; indeed, some would say that they do. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that we need a clear definition from these people that they have departed from their past—if it is indeed their past—and that they must demonstrate credible support for law and order if they are ever to become Ministers?

Stephen Pound: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Few statements are less equivocal than the statement that was made to the effect that the war is over. The hon. Gentleman will probably say that although statements can be made and words uttered, they may be blown hither and thither on the wind, but what on earth would it take to prove this commitment? One could say, "Here is a form of words that constitutes a continual raising of the bar, which has to be jumped over before such people are acceptable". However, although it would be presumptuous of me to attempt to speak for the Government—I have no doubt that I will never be called upon to do so—I would suggest that the participation of individuals in the democratic process is in itself a statement of intent. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury referred, somewhat exotically, to someone choosing to be a legislator by day and a terrorist by night, but that simply does not happen: it is not practical and there is no historical precedent for it.

Laurence Robertson: The hon. Gentleman needs to make a better attempt at answering the very reasonable question asked by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). He said that the IRA stated that the war is over, but he knows as well as the rest of us that the elected Sinn Fein Members do not take their seats in this House because they do not recognise the legitimacy of this Parliament. Similarly, they do not recognise the legitimacy of the police in Northern Ireland. Surely it is reasonable to expect someone who takes office and takes charge of the police to recognise their legitimacy. That is what my amendment seeks to ensure.

Stephen Pound: Recognising the police's legitimacy is one thing; having to swear a secondary or tertiary oath is entirely another matter. All Members of this House swear an Oath of Allegiance and we accept that. We have never been asked to swear a second or third oath and frankly, introducing an additional filter of oath-taking would be provocative.
	As I said earlier, I do not speak for Sinn Fein in this House and nor will I, but based on my tiny amount of knowledge of the subject, the consistent political position of Sinn Fein, who believe in an all-Ireland party and who do not wish to sit in the legislature of what they consider another country, is understandable and legitimate, even if it is not endorsed by many—about four, I should imagine—Members of this House. It would be easy for them to turn up, collect their pay and rations and keep their fingers crossed when they swear the Oath of Allegiance. They do not do so and I almost admire them for that, even if they do not have my personal sympathy.

Gregory Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman not concede that Sinn Fein have said repeatedly that they do not accept the legitimacy of the army of the Irish Republic—the "Oglaigh Na hEireann", as they call it—let alone this House or this jurisdiction? Given that attitude, can we accept the bona fides of such a person if they aspire to be a justice Minister in Northern Ireland?

Stephen Pound: The description "Oglaigh Na hEireann" was in fact used for a different army on a number of occasions, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware. I repeat—I hope for the last time—that I cannot speak for another political party; indeed, I can scarcely speak for my own on many occasions. I say, in a sincere attempt to cut through the mist and obfuscation and the terrible dead weight of the past that hangs so heavily on our shoulders, that were I faced with choosing between an individual committing acts of terrorism or them being in a state legislature, choosing the latter option might well stick in my craw. I accept that entirely, and I cannot say too often how much I understand the difficulties that Northern Ireland Members have faced over the years, but given the choice of such a person being at the Dispatch Box or wielding a nail bomb, I am absolutely sure which I prefer.
	Winston Silcott, the man accused of the appalling murder of PC Keith Blakelock at Broadwater Farm, was later released from prison and took part in a youth diversion programme in the borough of Haringey. People said exactly the same thing then: how can somebody accused of such a crime now be on the side of law and order? However, I am delighted at every sinner who repents. [Interruption.] I appreciate that we are moving away from the subject for debate, and before your eyebrows raise any higher, Sir Michael, I will return to the point at hand. I say with the deepest respect to the hon. Member for North Down that she has made the mistake of confusing policy and personalities. If Sinn Fein were not involved and there was no Provisional IRA, nobody would be talking about constantly raising the bar in this way. What we are talking about is a disqualification mechanism when in fact, we should be thinking of mechanisms for inclusion. We are talking about a way of preventing people from participating in the democratic process when we should be drawing people into that process, and if they bring with them a trail speckled with blood, I must reluctantly accept that that was the past but that this is the future and people change.
	I respectfully suggest that there is enough evidence to indicate that people have changed, although not in heaven's name nearly enough to satisfy every Member of the House. I would not be so foolish or presumptuous as to imply that those people have changed completely, but they have changed, so to apply yet another series of filters can only be seen as a force against inclusion.

Stephen Pound: Sir Michael, I understand the rules of good manners and the rules of debate and that this one finishes at 6 pm, but I shall give way to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr. McCrea).

Stephen Pound: In making his point so dramatically, the hon. Gentleman rather loses the precision of the point originally made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Mrs. Robinson). We are not talking about the individual who committed the act—[Hon. Members: "We are".] Not in respect of 7/7; those people are dead. I am talking about a far more dangerous grouping—the people who provide the sea in which terrorist fish swim. Those people are so disaffected—we need not approve of that disaffection by recognising that it exists—that they see only one route to realise their ambitions. Would I rather see them participating in the democratic process? For heaven's sake, would not every one of us rather see them doing that, even if sometimes, Sir Michael, you have to hold your nose when you look around and see what democracy has thrown up? We may not like the Hamas victory in Palestine, but is not it better that people are participating in the democratic process?

Stephen Pound: I have a worrying suspicion that interventions could continue for some time, so I shall conclude on the two most serious points.
	I apologise for reiterating the first point, but it bears repetition: at a personal level, I profoundly regret any impression that I or any of my colleagues may ever give that we are less than sympathetic to the reality of life as it has been and is being lived in the north of Ireland. We understand in many cases even though we may be confused in some cases. We may sometimes be the victims of history or our personal prejudice, but if there is one thing that overarches every syllable that has been uttered in the Chamber over the last few years, if there is one aim and one light that we can surely walk towards, it is the possibility—the prospect—of that shimmering chimera of the future where we can have a peaceful community and reach not a nirvana but an unachievable situation.
	We have to make some unpleasant decisions. We have to live with some unfortunate facts. We have to live with things with which, frankly, we would rather not live. But the alternative is to be for ever frozen in a bloodstained past with no hope and no future whatever. I am not happy with the situation. I do not like it, and in an ideal world I would have nothing to do with it; but we live in a real world and constantly to tell people, "We will not allow you in unless you tick this box, tick that box, jump this bar and swear that oath" is ultimately prohibitive and negative, and will detract from the one thing that every democrat in the House of Commons wants—a peaceful future for the people of a Province who have suffered for long enough.

Peter Robinson: May I respond to the remarks of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound)? Earlier, he indicated his propensity to read Hansard reports of previous sittings. Tomorrow, when he reads his contribution to this debate, he will realise that it did him no credit. He started by struggling and ended by wriggling.
	I want to make it clear to the hon. Gentleman that we are talking about the people who will be Ministers for policing and justice in Northern Ireland. They could be chosen—and are likely to be chosen if there are joint Ministers—from those who have engaged in the most heinous crimes imaginable in Northern Ireland. The current Sinn Fein-IRA spokesperson on policing and justice is Gerard Kelly, who, among his achievements, was responsible for the bombing of the Old Bailey and the attempted bombing of New Scotland Yard—policing and justice in one go. The same person was jailed in the Maze prison and led an escape in which one of my constituents was killed by being stabbed in the eye with a screwdriver. That is a person whom we are asked to accept as a Minister for policing and justice in Northern Ireland.
	My hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Dr. McCrea) intervened to indicate that the hon. Member for Ealing, North was saying that he would welcome certain people to come into the heart of government in the United Kingdom, and the comparison to be made is exactly as my hon. Friend said: it is like bringing a member of al-Qaeda who has been responsible for terrorist offences into the office of policing and justice as the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom. Not one hon. Member would contemplate that; why should we contemplate it in Northern Ireland? That is what the hon. Gentleman is asking us to do.
	What offends the hon. Gentleman, if he is offended by the proposition of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon)? She suggests that in the circumstances, given the history of the parties in Northern Ireland, it is proper for people who are to attain that high office, that responsible post in Northern Ireland to be prepared to pledge themselves to support the police service that they will administer. Is that an outrageous suggestion? Is it so off the wall to expect those who will be responsible for policing and justice in Northern Ireland to say, "We support the police"?
	The hon. Gentleman thinks that it is awful to ask those people to pledge themselves in that way. He says that we come to the House and we make pledges, but no one asks us to take a second pledge. Well, he asked me to take a second pledge in Northern Ireland, because he supported the enactment of the Belfast Agreement in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which required a pledge of office to be taken by Ministers in Northern Ireland.
	A pledge of office had to be taken, because of the recognition that, in the special circumstances of that Assembly, it was necessary for those Ministers to pledge themselves to certain standards and behaviour. Is there something different in the office of policing and justice? Is it not more required in those circumstances that a pledge of office be taken? I fully support the proposition of the hon. Member for North Down, and I hope that, given the sincerity of Unionist Members and the severity of the criminal and other offences committed in Northern Ireland, the House will consider that it is a necessary requirement for the post that is being discussed.

Lorely Burt: I almost hesitate to rise after the passion and eloquence of the contributions that we have heard from hon. Members. I have listened very carefully to everything that has been said this afternoon, particularly the point made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about paragraph (a) in the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), which relates to criminal offences and sentences of imprisonment debarring anyone from holding office. I have taken the hon. Gentleman's argument about that going against the spirit of the Good Friday agreement.
	I have also listened very carefully to the eloquent and persuasive comments made by the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound). At the same time, however, we very much understand and sympathise with the feelings of many people in Northern Ireland about the fact that they wish for reassurance that those people who will take responsibility for their policing should also be part of the process. It is a great hope that, when that day comes, those people who take such responsibility will automatically take part by taking their seats on the Policing Board and becoming part of the community and structures in which they serve.
	I find myself in a little bit of a dilemma. Although we are minded to support the first and second parts of the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for North Down, we are also minded to support new clause 3, proposed by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson). If the amendment is pressed to a vote, I should be extremely grateful to the House if it could be possible to reflect those two elements of support in the voting pattern.

William McCrea: I am sure that the debate has certainly stirred the hearts of quite a number of Northern Ireland Members, especially given the contribution made by the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound). He tells us that we must live in the real world. With the greatest respect to him, no one, but no one, is living in the real world more than the people of Northern Ireland. We must tell the Government that, many times, they seem to be sleepwalking. They are not facing the realities of the situation. They are not part of the real world whenever they make demands and requests of members of the Unionist community or the nationalist community who have suffered grievously under all acts of terrorism.
	The hon. Gentleman said that we must move away from the sad past to a peaceful situation. Again, I say to him genuinely that there is no one who wants to see Northern Ireland in a peaceful and prosperous state more than the Unionist Members here today and the Unionist family completely. We genuinely want Northern Ireland to move into a peaceful state, but the reality of the situation is that, yesterday, a bomb was being prepared in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), in Lurgan, by the republican movement. In the constituency of Foyle, a few days before that, once again there was a primed bomb ready and activated to carry out a dastardly deed—certainly, we believe, of destruction and we were told by the police that it would have brought forth the reality of murder, had it gone off. That is the reality of the situation and we close our eyes to it if we do not face that.

William McCrea: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but people in Northern Ireland know fine well that the title of "dissident republican" has been used to cover a number of sins. In the case of some of the actions in the past, we have known that the dissidents have been working hand in glove with the provisionals. In that situation, we have got to ask ourselves, when does that title mean dissident and when does it mean something else? We know that, in certain parts of the Province, no dissident could do anything if the provisionals did not agree with it being done. They would not survive without that agreement, because the provisionals have a wonderful way of ensuring that people do not undertake action on their territory if they do not want them to do so. That has been proved in the past. We have to look at a situation in which neither the Police Service of Northern Ireland, nor the Garda from the Irish Republic, have stated with certainty what happened in the murder of Denis Donaldson, which could have been the act of the Provisional IRA.
	Yes, people can have a past. But the reality is that there has been no remorse—or no expression of remorse—from those persons who have been actively engaged, right up to the present time, in murderous activity. This House is being asked to give credence to someone who in actual fact has planned the murder—not only given credence to, but actually could have planned the murder—of police officers or members of the security forces. We are being asked to give credence to making them Minister for policing or justice. That is without any expression of remorse, regret or any other thing.
	A Provisional IRA member was caught redhanded a few days ago, but then, of course, the provisionals stated that they did not send him out and that he did not go with their agreement. Now they are trying to say, "Oh well, it wasn't approved by the army council." That is very interesting, because the IRA's last act before it started its supposed ceasefire was to be the murder of my wife, my children and myself—that was its last hooray. The next morning the ceasefire was declared. Those responsible have never been brought to justice—those who shot at my home, which was riddled by 60 bullets from an AK47, and directly at my daughter of seven years of age. Nobody has been brought to justice. What did the IRA say? The persons were not acting with their approval. Now, that would have been very nice if they had been carrying my wife and my children down the road in coffins. I would have been greatly encouraged if the act had not been approved.
	With the greatest respect, the hon. Member for Ealing, North and the House cannot understand the depths of what the past 35 years have done to the people of Northern Ireland. To sweep it away and put in control of policing or justice in Northern Ireland someone who not only agreed with murderous intent, but was an active participant in it, would be an absolute insult, as well as injury, to the people of Northern Ireland. I am sure that nobody but nobody on the Government Benches would ever suggest that a member of al-Qaeda or those responsible for 7/7 in the city of London would be at any time a suitable person to be Home Secretary, put in the Home Office, or put over the police. We must especially bear it in mind that these people will not even be asked to support the police, or give a pledge of their support of the security forces.
	I must say something to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about people disagreeing with certain police decisions about a parade. When he talked about an attack on the police, he gave the impression that the attack came simply from the loyalist community. Talk about a revision of facts. Whenever there have been Unionist and loyalist parades, constant attacks have come directly from the republican community. There is a vast difference between disagreeing with a police decision in a peaceful manner, even if that involves stepping aside from the district policing partnership, and allowing there to be someone over the police who does not support them and has actively participated in campaigning against them and actively supported a campaign of murder against them. Trying to equate those two things pushes matters beyond the realms of what I can accept.

William McCrea: With the greatest respect, I would prefer it if we did not necessarily go down that road. I remember sitting in a meeting of Magherafelt district council many years ago on the night of the Warrenpoint bombing, in which 19 soldiers were murdered, when a member of the hon. Gentleman's party, who is no longer with us, stated—this is in the minutes of the council, so the hon. Gentleman can check it—that he would shed no tears over them. I think that that person regretted saying that afterwards, so I will not attribute that opinion to the SDLP in general, or try to paint everyone in the SDLP as black, but the words were said.
	Members of the Ulster Unionist party, the Democratic Unionist party and, indeed, members of the SDLP—namely, Mr. Attwood—have condemned many of the actions of the police in the past and disagreed with them, but that does not mean that they have given credence to terrorism, or that they should be brought into question as if they were somehow to be equated to persons who were actually evil participants in the murder and destruction of members of the police or the security forces.
	The hon. Member for Ealing, North said that Sinn Fein-IRA said that the war is over. The person who said those words denied that he was a member of the IRA army council. After denying for 30 years that he and Martin McGuinness were members of the army council, he told the community that they had resigned from it. With the greatest respect, one cannot resign from something if one was not a member. We are led to believe by those fanciful words that the war is over. Let me make it clear to the House that the IRA did not change its policy because it had a change of heart—9/11 changed Sinn Fein-IRA policy. It could not go back to what it knew best, because the international community would not allow that to happen, so it had a good dose of reality.
	To this day, the structures of terrorism are in place, and individuals who could be in office accepted those structures. The structures of the grouping that murdered people for 35 years are still in existence. Someone can demand that they remain in place but, at the same time, they could be the Minister of justice or of policing. No one can ride two horses at once, and the reality is that terrorism, whether by the loyalist community or the Unionist community, is terrorism, and must be condemned unreservedly. I do so in the House without equivocation. Any Minister who takes such a role must not only condemn terrorism but give unreserved support to the forces of law and order who go out to sacrifice themselves in the defence of the freedoms of that community.

Sammy Wilson: We have gone over the issue a great deal, but I should like to take up a couple of points made by the hon. Members for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound) and for Foyle (Mark Durkan). There has been an attempt to use passion to cover up the lack of logic on the part of some Members who argued against a perfectly reasonable amendment. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) is asking for two things: first, anyone who is in charge of policing in Northern Ireland should not have a serious criminal record and, secondly, they should be prepared to support the police service, and give public expression to that support. I do not know why that generated so much opposition, as both requirements are logical.
	The hon. Member for Ealing, North said that there were two reasons why he could not support the amendment. He said that we should not confuse the past with the present—just because someone has a past that does not mean that they cannot have a present or a future. He may have stolen those words from the previous leader of the party of the hon. Member for North Down. On the issue of whether having a past disqualifies someone for office, I believe that it is difficult for someone with such a record to be in charge of policing or to have any credibility in such a role. Setting that aside, proposed paragraph (b) requires Ministers in charge of the police service to give support at the present time to that service. I do not see why that should create a problem. How could anyone say, "I wish to be in charge of policing in Northern Ireland, but by the way, I am so suspicious of the police service, or I have such antipathy towards it because of its past record, that I could not make a declaration of support for it"? There is no logic in that. The hon. Member for Ealing, North must have understood that, so he became quite passionate to overcome the lack of logic in the position that he had adopted.
	The hon. Gentleman asked what it would take to make a member of Sinn Fein acceptable as Justice Minister. Let me tell him. I shall give some recent examples of the practical implications of not supporting the police service. A young girl from England, walking home late one night in west Belfast last summer, was raped by three fellows. They videoed it on her phone and sent the pictures to her mother in England. Sinn Fein would not encourage the people who had witnessed that event to give evidence to the police. What would it take? It would take members of that party at least to have enough willingness to support the police to encourage their constituents and those who look up to them to give evidence.
	What would it take? The hon. Member for Ealing, North has sat in a Northern Ireland Committee and listened to some of the evidence given about organised crime in Northern Ireland. When the police raid the home of someone who has hidden £600,000 under hay bales and hidden evidence of his fuel laundering and smuggling, it would take Conor Murphy and Gerry Adams not to attack the police for raiding the home of someone who is only a poor republican farmer and who supports the police process—the implied threat being that by raiding that home, the police are disturbing the chance of peace in Northern Ireland. That is what it would take.
	What would it take? Let me tell the hon. Member for Ealing, North. I serve on Belfast city council. Every year the police give awards for a rambling scheme. When it comes to allowing council facilities to be used to give out those awards, Sinn Fein's opposition to the police requires them to vote against that every time. I am not talking about an individual member of a party. I am talking about the collective attitude of Sinn Fein towards the police. If the hon. Gentleman believes that some member of a party which adopts that attitude towards the police is fit to be in charge of the police and to stand up in the Northern Ireland Assembly and defend the police, answer questions about the police and explain police operations, there is no logic in that. I hope the hon. Gentleman will rethink his position.
	I think the hon. Member for Foyle was having an experience similar to the experience that the Minister had yesterday, when he was trying to explain the circumstances in which the Secretary of State might refuse to allow the electoral officer to hold an additional canvass. He scratched around for reasons, and he came up with two—yesterday, the Minister came up with three, but they were no more convincing than the two that we have heard today.
	The first reason was, "We do not believe in building in a vetting requirement." I have pointed out that SDLP members on the Policing Board believe that the members of lowly district policing partnerships should be vetted. The Policing Board has a vetting procedure, which SDLP members argued for furiously. The code of conduct will require people on the Policing Board to have due regard to equality and diversity requirements. That means that even if someone expresses a religious belief in a private capacity that is deemed to be against equality and diversity requirements, they cannot sit on the Policing Board. Do not tell me about vetting.

Mark Durkan: I have never said that the SDLP has no time for vetting of any kind. In negotiating the agreement, it was clear that the appointment would be made by the d'Hondt system with no qualifications or vetting by any other parties, but the amendment would go against that aspect of the agreement. I also point out to the hon. Gentleman that the agreement included a pledge of office and that we have said that we would look again at the pledge of office, including in relation to policing.

Sammy Wilson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. I did not realise that my argument has such force, but perhaps he is coming round to our point of view.

Sammy Wilson: The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) has given the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to move in that direction by including in her amendment a requirement that those who take on the role of Policing and Justice Ministers must pledge to support the institutions which they are going to govern.
	The second argument advanced by the hon. Gentleman—that the amendment could have unforeseen applications—was as weak as his first. The hon. Gentleman did not let the Minister off with weak examples yesterday, but the only example of an unforeseen application that he could provide was that the Ulster Unionist party in Belfast has withdraw from the DPP, which could be interpreted as not supporting the police. I will not defend the UUP, because the hon. Member for North Down is quite capable of doing so, but by no stretch of the imagination could that example be described as not supporting the police in the same way as Sinn Fein members do not support the police.
	We will support the amendment, despite the lack of consistency—the position is no more or less important than any other office in an Executive in the Assembly, and the provision should apply to all Ministers and all ministerial posts. At least the amendment is a start, and when we discuss the pledge of office, hopefully the hon. Member for Foyle and his party will have changed their position sufficiently to include the provision in all pledges of office for Ministers in any Executive in Northern Ireland.

David Hanson: I thank hon. Members for their powerful contributions to the debate. I particularly appreciate the comments made by the hon. Members for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson), for Strangford (Mrs. Robinson), for South Antrim (Dr. McCrea) and for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). They put their case powerfully; I cannot in any circumstances understand the difficulties that they and their constituents have faced.
	I shall not condone or defend the actions that hon. Members have described. Indeed, I condemn them with every fibre of my body. Terrorist activities—such as the cowardly attack against the family of the hon. Member for South Antrim—need to be, and will be, condemned by me from this Dispatch Box on behalf of the Government. I will not condone or support any of the actions that have been mentioned, because they are intolerable and incompatible with a democratic society and with the values that we hold dear in this House.
	I understand the sentiments expressed by the hon. Members for North Down (Lady Hermon) and for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson). Support for law and order authorities and the rule of law are fundamental to democracy and to the good working of the Assembly in having control of policing and criminal justice in future. Nevertheless, I cannot support their amendments, for reasons that I hope to explain in clarifying the Government's view.
	Amendment No. 31 states:
	"No person shall be appointed as Minister or Junior Minister"—
	in a Department responsible for criminal justice and policing if they have—
	"been convicted of a criminal offence and had a sentence of imprisonment imposed whether suspended or not".
	I understand why the hon. Member for North Down tabled the amendment, but I cannot support it. In the House of Commons, the disqualification arrangements for ministerial office are broadly the same as in the Northern Ireland Assembly. In this House, a person who is detained in prison for a year or more is automatically disqualified from membership of the House and therefore from holding office for the period of his or her detention. Section 36(4) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 provides that a person is similarly disqualified from the Assembly if he or she would be disqualified from the House of Commons. I can see no good reason to bar an individual in Northern Ireland from holding ministerial posts on the basis of any criminal conviction or to depart from the Westminster model.
	I do not wish in any way, shape or form to equate the situation in South Africa, for example, with that in Northern Ireland. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound) pointed to three or four examples of individuals who have served criminal sentences in jurisdictions and who have gone on to serve their nation with distinction because, however much we may dislike the views that they express, they have ultimately, just like the hon. Member for South Antrim, had crosses put by their names on ballot papers by individuals in their communities. That is the test of democracy. They are in those Chambers with the legitimacy of those crosses, even if they have had convictions in the past for events that were, by any stretch of the imagination, intolerable at that time.
	If we introduce special provisions on disqualification relating to the Northern Ireland Assembly, they will not apply in the House of Commons. When I researched the amendment, I found, surprising as it may seem, that a Home Secretary of today could have a past conviction. Provided that they are not in jail now, they could serve as Home Secretary. Likewise, no such provisions for disqualification apply in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Although there are special and difficult circumstances in Northern Ireland, to introduce that condition would disqualify individuals on the basis of their past sentences, not on the basis of where they may be currently. Indeed, there may be Members of the House who currently could not serve in a Northern Ireland Executive because of the disqualification for which the amendment provides. That is unacceptable and generally unfair to society.
	Secondly, I believe that the protections for which the 1998 Act provides are sufficient. The hon. Member for Foyle mentioned the pledge of office. As hon. Members know, all Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly must affirm it before taking up their posts. It already requires them to make a commitment to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means. The hon. Members for Tewkesbury and for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) also referred to the pledge of office. The protection of exclusively peaceful and democratic means already exists.
	If that were not enough, amendments to the 1998 Act to facilitate consideration of Independent Monitoring Commission recommendations provide sufficient safeguards when Ministers and parties fail to observe the pledge of office. Hon. Members know that, if the IMC reports that activity of a criminal nature has taken place, it can be debated in the Assembly. Safeguards therefore exist for Ministers and the Assembly.

David Hanson: Let me say again that, whatever the opinions of individual hon. Members—and we all have our disagreements—I believe that, if a person has a cross put next to their name and sufficient support to take up a place in a Chamber, whether it is this Chamber, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament or the European Parliament, provided they are not serving a prison sentence, it gives them the legitimacy to enter that Chamber, and, if they have majority support, to hold office. That may be distasteful. There are some people whom I would not wish to see walking through the door into the Chamber—[Hon. Members: "Who?"] There are all sorts of individuals whom I could cite as an answer. However, those who walk into the Chamber do that because people have put crosses next to their names on ballot papers. That could be distasteful because they had committed horrendous acts in the past, including such acts as those that the hon. Member for South Antrim described. They are painful for him—it is painful to listen to their description—and for the community that he represents. However, the cross on the ballot paper confers legitimacy.

Lady Hermon: The Minister will not be surprised to learn that I am not prepared to withdraw the amendments. I am disappointed with his woefully inadequate response to the significant points made by many Members in this lengthy debate.
	I am sure that the Minister is aware that all police officers in Northern Ireland must make a pledge when they become serving constables. That pledge is in statutory form—it is in the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000. Every constable must declare and affirm that they will
	"faithfully discharge the duties of the office of constable, with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights and . . . to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties thereof according to law."
	If that is the requirement that the office of a constable must undertake, it is shocking that the Minister found himself unable to support the amendment this afternoon.
	It is inconceivable to me and fellow Unionists that the Minister found himself unable to accept that those with a criminal conviction might well have been responsible for the murder not just of one police officer—let us remind ourselves that 302 police officers have been murdered in Northern Ireland. Does he honestly believe that it will inspire confidence and instil trust within the police service if a Minister cannot make a declaration in public of his or her support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland? Likewise, will it inspire trust and confidence that those with a string of convictions hold an important ministerial post as either the Minister with responsibility for policing or for justice, either at six-monthly intervals or acting jointly? The answer is undoubtedly no. I therefore want to press the amendment to the vote.

Lorely Burt: I beg to move amendment No. 8, in clause 19, page 14, line 24, at end insert—
	'(8) The Secretary of State shall not lay an Order under section 4(2) in relation to any matter which is specified in any of paragraphs 9 to 12, 14A and 15A and 17 of Schedule 3 unless—
	(a) a period of two years has passed since a restoration order was made under section 2(2) of the Northern Ireland Act 2000; and
	(b) he is satisfied that the Assembly is stable and secure.'.
	This is essentially a probing amendment. We hope that the Government will give us appropriate reassurances that the devolution of policing and justice functions to the Assembly will not occur until that body is on a secure footing.
	We hope that the Government will not misinterpret the intentions behind the amendment. The Liberal Democrat party is a devolutionist party, and our policy for a number of years has been that policing and justice functions should be devolved to the Assembly. We generally welcome part 5, but the importance of policing to society was shown clearly in the previous debate, so we must be careful about when, and under what circumstances, those functions are devolved.
	The Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended for three and a half years. In the period between the elections of 1998 and the beginning of the current suspension in October 2002, the Assembly went through a stop-start process, with various periods of suspension. Even when it was functioning, there were several crises involving the resignations of First Ministers and Deputy First Ministers.
	Given that instability, it would be wrong to devolve policing and justice functions to the Assembly. We cannot allow something as important as policing to be devolved to an Administration that does not look as though it will stand the test of time. It would be disastrous for policing to be in the hands of an Assembly Minister one week and the responsibility of a Minister in Westminster the next. Of all the areas of life for which Parliament is responsible, policing is one of the most fundamental.
	We recognise that the amendment may not be perfect, but hope that the Minister will be able to give some reassurance when he responds. It is relatively simple and provides that the Secretary of State could not lay an order before Parliament to devolve any policing or justice functions to the Assembly unless two conditions were fulfilled.
	The first condition is that the Assembly must have been up and running for a continuous period of two years. We chose that length of time because it was mentioned by the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach in the proposals for the comprehensive agreement in 2004.
	The second condition is that the Secretary of State must be
	"satisfied that the Assembly is stable and secure."
	I realise that defining "stable and secure" is difficult, but I suggest to the Committee that we will know that the state has been reached when we see it. However, it would be helpful for the Minister to describe the factors that he will take into consideration when the time comes to lay an order before Parliament to devolve policing functions to the Assembly.
	As I said, this is essentially a probing amendment. We hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us on the matter.

Lorely Burt: I beg to move amendment No. 9, in schedule 2, page 25, line 34, leave out from 'passed' to end of line 38 and insert 'with cross-community support.'.

Lorely Burt: These are essentially probing amendments. Schedule 2 requires that a nomination to the ministerial department with policing and justice functions must be approved by a cross-community vote of the Assembly: a vote in which a majority of Unionists, a majority of nationalists and a majority of all Assembly Members approve the appointment. However, by virtue of the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998, there are two ways in which a cross-community vote can be achieved. The first is the 50:50:50 method, outlined in the Bill, while the second requires that the vote is approved by 40 per cent. of Unionists, 40 per cent. of nationalists and 60 per cent. overall of Assembly Members voting.
	The first method of achieving a cross-community vote was designated in the 1998 Act to approve the appointment of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister. As we have seen, there were difficulties in achieving a vote on that basis. Can the Minister confirm that it is the Government's sincere intention to use that type of cross-community vote when the Assembly asks that policing and justice issues are devolved to it? If so, can he explain why that version was chosen, rather than simply using the wording
	"a vote with cross-community support"
	as set out in our amendment, leaving the Assembly with the flexibility to achieve such a vote by either method?

David Hanson: As the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) mentioned, the Bill specifies that the 50:50:50 procedure should be used. We chose that method because we felt that the procedure for taking office in the case of the Minister for criminal justice and policing had in more common with that of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister than any other Department. Correspondingly, the requirement for cross-community support should be reflected in the method of election of those Ministers.
	I am reasonably flexible in the matter. Although 50:50:50 was our original choice, the amendment would mean that there were two methods. I have not discussed the election of a criminal justice Minister with any of the parties in Northern Ireland to take their views about what would be acceptable to the Assembly, but I am reasonably content to look into that possibility.

David Hanson: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the matter. I hope that my muddy explanation helped, at least in part. As I have said to her, the Government believe that it is important to maintain a single legislative framework for international co-operation between criminal justice agencies and for extradition arrangements throughout the United Kingdom. For that reason and for the reason that I mentioned in my intervention, the provision does not transfer any legislative competence from this House to the Northern Ireland Assembly for these matters of extradition. Nor do we intend to do so in any future devolution under section 4(2) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.
	Instead, the provision is in place to allow Northern Ireland Ministers to assume direct responsibility for those administrative functions that fall directly within their control and which they are best placed to carry out. It may be helpful if I give the hon. Lady an example in relation to Scotland, where criminal justice and policing are the devolved responsibility of the Scottish Parliament. Under the Extradition Act 2003, a guarantee may be needed about the future treatment in custody of an individual being extradited to the UK jurisdiction. In England and Wales, that guarantee will currently be given by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on behalf of the British Government. In Scotland, because justice matters are devolved and the Scottish Parliament has taken responsibility for them, it will have to be responsible for any guarantees. At the point in the future when the Northern Ireland Assembly assumes responsibility for criminal justice and policing, there may be areas of administration where guarantees are required under legislation and a British Government Home Secretary cannot not give them because, for example, the Court Service and the Prison Service are devolved matters in Northern Ireland.
	The legislation framework is a UK framework, which I think is the point that the hon. Lady is most concerned about. That will remain paramount and that is the responsibility of this House, for the United Kingdom as a whole, under its international obligations. However, as now happens in Scotland, the administration of certain aspects of the implementation or operation of the legislation will be the responsibility of the devolved Administration. The purpose of clause 21 is to allow the administrative functions that can be transferred to be transferred, where it is appropriate to do so—at the moment, I do not know all the details of when that might be. When the functions are entitled to be transferred, the Bill will give us the power to do that, without diluting in any way, shape or form the UK responsibility for extradition and for those matters that the hon. Lady remains concerned about.
	The hon. Lady mentioned the extradition treaty, which, as she said, is not yet in force. Some of its provisions were given effect in UK legislation by the Extradition Act 2003, which came into force on 1 January 2004. For the treaty to come into effect, it needs to secure the advice and consent of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As a Government, we are urging very strongly that that be considered at the earliest opportunity. Obviously, she will understand that it is not within my gift to ensure that a separate legislature, particularly in America, can agree that matter very quickly, but it is the Government's certain intention to ensure that the treaty comes into effect. Once the United States and the United Kingdom have exchanged the instruments of ratification, the treaty will come into force. I hope that that will happen as soon as possible. I hope that I can reassure the hon. Lady by saying that it is the Government's intention to make sure that it does. She will know that, in this House, Select Committees take their time to examine issues. The same thing is the case in the United States Senate, but I am confident that this matter will be resolved speedily and I hope that that reassures her on both counts.

Lady Hermon: I accept the Minister's first point that the Government do not intend to transfer any extradition policy to the Northern Ireland Assembly. I tabled the amendment because I wanted such clarification, so the Minister has reassured me.
	I am rather hesitant to accept the assurance on the second point, however. It has already been pointed out that the British Government have implemented their part of the new extradition arrangements with America in that white-collar workers and executives who are being investigated by the American authorities for criminal offences of a commercial nature have been extradited to America without a prima facie case being made against them. I refer the Minister to an interesting article that was published not so long ago in a newspaper that he perhaps occasionally reads: The Guardian. On 15 December 2005, a certain Larry Elliot—he is not a constituent, so I have no personal axe to grind—wrote:
	"America's decision not to make the agreement reciprocal followed pressure from the powerful Irish-American lobby, which feared that Britain might try to extradite republican sympathisers."
	Although I accept that the Minister cannot influence an American Committee or a different jurisdiction, extradition is in the Bill and is thus a legitimate matter to raise. Individuals who committed the most heinous crimes in Northern Ireland are still on the run in America, enjoying their freedom. They have never faced the courts. I urge the Minister to have a quiet, dignified word with the Home Secretary to ensure that there is no blockage at all to the reciprocal arrangements.

Peter Robinson: New clause 6 relates to the recruitment policy of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and, especially, its discriminatory 50:50 recruitment policy. I state on behalf of all my colleagues on these Benches that we want the best of our citizens in Northern Ireland in the ranks of the PSNI, irrespective of their religious or community background. We want the composition of the PSNI to reflect our whole community, and to represent both its religious groups and the smaller ethnic groups. It adopted its present policy because of the low numbers of Roman Catholic recruits in the past years and decades to the PSNI and, before that, the Royal Ulster Constabulary. That was a direct result of the activities of the Irish Republican Army, which targeted Roman Catholics, who were less likely to apply to, and join, the RUC. Happily, many of them defied the terrorists and became members of the RUC, many of them serving in high-ranking posts with considerable bravery and distinction.
	Discrimination is wrong. It is offensive, and it is against European human rights legislation, but it is authorised in recruitment to the PSNI. Some people may describe it as positive or benign discrimination, but it is still discrimination. Hundreds of fully qualified Protestants have been denied employment on the basis of their religion simply because there has not been a corresponding uptake from the Catholic community. The 50:50 recruitment policy requires a 50 per cent. intake from the Roman Catholic community and a 50 per cent. intake not just from the Protestant community—the largest community in Northern Ireland—but from all other non-Christian and ethnic groups. On 12 October 2005, the Secretary of State revealed in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) that of the 4,413 applicants from the Protestant community who were considered suitably qualified to hold a post only 972 were appointed. That is a success rate of only 20 per cent. for applicants from a Protestant background. Of the 1,568 Roman Catholic applicants, however, 991 were successful, which is a success rate of over 60 per cent. To be successful in gaining admittance to the PSNI merit pool, non-Roman Catholic applicants were expected to score an average of 59 marks or 84 per cent., whereas Roman Catholic applicants were expected to score an average of 43 marks or 62 per cent. in the examination. It is entirely unacceptable that non-Roman Catholic applicants should be expected to score an average of 22 per cent. more than Roman Catholic applicants to gain access to a merit pool, in which Roman Catholic applicants are over three times more likely to be successful in achieving selection.
	As Roman Catholic recruits do not need to score as highly as their non-Roman Catholic counterparts, there is a valid charge that less qualified Roman Catholic recruits have been successful while than their non-Roman Catholic counterparts have not, even though they achieved a much higher score. That creates the impression in the community that police officers working in the area are not there because of their ability to do the job but simply because of their religious background. That does not help increase the community's confidence in the effectiveness of the PSNI. The Government are prepared to introduce legislation to increase the number of recruits from the Roman Catholic community, but as non-Christians and ethnic minorities are classed alongside Protestant applicants, there is clear discrimination against both Protestant applicants and individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds. At a time when race hate crimes are increasing in Northern Ireland, the Government should be doing more to encourage members of ethnic minorities in Northern Ireland to join the PSNI.
	The imbalance in the RUC was mainly the result of intimidation of Roman Catholic recruits by the IRA. Applications from the Roman Catholic community were shown to rise from 11 per cent. to 22 per cent.—double—after the first IRA ceasefire, without any anti-discriminatory legislation being put in place. It is therefore clear that it was the removal of the threat against those applicants, rather than any unfair recruitment policies, that brought about a significant increase in applications.
	The Patten Commission took no heed of that fact in its report. It is inconceivable that anyone who was taking a serious look at the reasons behind the community imbalance in the RUC could have ignored the No. 1 reason why Roman Catholics were not joining. That meant that Patten was taking no account of the effect that the removal of that threat would have upon applications to the police.
	Catholics had shown that they had the opportunity to rise through the ranks of the RUC—16 per cent. at very senior officer level were Roman Catholic. People simply want more officers on the street. They do not care what religion they come from or what their background may be. They simply want the best qualified officers who are best able to do the job of tackling crime.
	Although the scheme is designed to encourage Catholic participation in the police, the operation of the scheme is alienating many young Protestants, who are told that they are of the wrong community background to get a job in policing. There is a danger that in trying to solve one problem, 50:50 recruiting will end up creating another. Every Member from Northern Ireland has had experience of this from young people in their constituency.
	The money being used to administer such official discrimination could be better spent on front-line policing services in Northern Ireland. While direct-rule Ministers constantly lecture the people of Northern Ireland about paying their own way, the Government are spending huge amounts of money on a discriminatory scheme. In recent weeks there was much publicity about the problems surrounding the provision of a new police training college in Northern Ireland. We are told that there is a lack of funding available to help build that college, and that it may be necessary to look for foreign investment to build it. At the same time we are spending millions of pounds enforcing the 50:50 recruitment scheme. The Government could help deliver world- class police training facilities, rather than enforcing discrimination in Northern Ireland.
	The former vice-chairman of the Policing Board admitted that 50:50 recruitment to the PSNI is an "aberration" and said that
	"it should be got rid of as soon as possible".
	Those comments by the Roman Catholic former vice-chairman of the Policing Board were supported not just by members of the Unionist community, but by the Alliance party, which does not support mechanisms that run contrary to human rights norms. It has recognised that the imposition of 50:50 recruitment has promoted division and led to more distrust in the police among various communities.
	It is somewhat ironic that the Police Service of Northern Ireland is supposed to be one of the police forces most trained in human rights. We are told that the PSNI is a world leader in this area. However, it would seem that human rights become important within the PSNI only when people have been successful in joining the service. The human rights of those who are unfortunate enough to be rejected on the grounds of their religion are ignored. Recruitment levels in the PSNI have ensured that the membership of the force from the Roman Catholic community is around 30 per cent. It is expected that by the time the review takes place, it will be around 40 per cent., in line with the percentage of the population that is from the Roman Catholic community.
	When he responds to the debate, will the Minister give a clear commitment that at the time of the review, if not immediately, the 50:50 recruitment policy will cease, and that the Government will recognise that they cannot continue with a policy that sets quotas for those who will get jobs in Northern Ireland, which is contrary to any human rights norm anywhere in the civilised world?

Iris Robinson: I think that the hon. Gentleman is a little guilty of rewriting history. Does he accept that, in the past, Roman Catholics have not been encouraged to participate in anything to do with Crown forces? Does he also accept that, if Roman Catholics did apply to join the RUC, they immediately became a target for terrorist groups and even had to forgo visiting their families if they joined? This is not about deliberate discrimination against the Roman Catholic community. That community excluded itself from joining the RUC for many years.

Eddie McGrady: We can use statistics whenever we like, but we want to achieve a balanced, supported police service in Northern Ireland and take a new, vigorous step forward. We are achieving an enormous amount of change. One of the alternative proposals at the time was the total abolition of the RUC, followed by recruitment into a new police force. That was seen—correctly, in my opinion—to be unacceptable, but it was totally understandable. Instead of choosing total abolition, we decided to let the RUC continue, and to apply the 50:50 rule on the basis that it would result in an acceleration of recruitment from the Catholic community to the police service. I believe that that arrangement has served the community very well. We can make political points about it and quote statistics, but the reality is that both communities are now providing good, well qualified young men and women who will serve our communities for years to come. When they have gone up through the ranks and achieved greater qualifications and experience, we will have a police service that is second to none, as we have now.
	I would ask hon. Members not to support the proposals from the DUP and the UUP for the total abolition of the 50:50 arrangement. If we want a new police service of the kind that I have tried to articulate, we should not support the new clause; it would represent a totally retrograde step.

Gregory Campbell: I would imagine, consistency being the keynote, that members of the SDLP would rush to the ramparts to demand 50:50 recruitment—but I think that the silence would be deafening.
	I implore Members to view this issue in terms of human rights and the equity of the present position. As I have said, in 2006 there are hundreds more applications to the Police Service in Northern Ireland than are required. There are hundreds more sufficiently qualified personnel from both communities than are required. There is no need and no requirement to discriminate systematically against people on grounds of their religion, because we have suitably qualified people from both communities. We should abandon this preposterous, unacceptable, inequitable, iniquitous 50:50 regime.

Mark Durkan: The hon. Gentleman said in his earlier remarks that thousands of people were rejected as a result of 50:50, but the figures from eight tranches of recruitment show that only 541 people were rejected as a result of 50:50 out of a total who were rejected of 3,879. The great thing is that we had 3,879 people applying alongside the other people who were accepted. That in itself shows the change that we have achieved in the concept of policing.
	It also needs to be remembered that, as a result of the opportunities created by the Patten reforms, we have more young Protestants being recruited to the police service year on year than happened in the years before Patten and the 50:50 policy. The Minister may be able to give us the relevant figures later when he contributes to the debate, but the numbers of young Protestants recruited to the police service in the years preceding Patten and the 50:50 policy were far lower than the numbers of young Protestants now being recruited to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. People need to get that into perspective and context. The DUP opposed the Patten changes because it wanted to retain the old RUC and personnel as it was. If it had had its way the number of young Protestants who are now applying to and succeeding in joining the police would not be what it is.

Mark Durkan: My hon. Friend justified 50:50, as I do, knowing that it creates some painful instances. A young Protestant would-be recruit in my constituency spoke to me with great emotion and to great effect on the issue. I know that it is difficult and hard. When choosing between a 50:50 policy on top of retaining the thousands of people who were retained from the old RUC or total disbandment followed by total recruitment on merit, it is not so perverse or cruel to opt for 50:50 as people are suggesting.
	It is certainly not leading to one-sided recruitment, or to a police service in which the Catholic community is over-represented. Under the Patten recommendations, the 50:50 approach was expected to mean that, even by 2010 or 2011, only 30 per cent. of the PSNI would be made up by members of the Catholic community. They accept that, which shows a degree of fairness, openness and realism on their part. Moreover, the fact that the Catholic community, in the context of the new beginning to policing, is able to extend acceptance and accessibility to all members of the PSNI, regardless of their community background, is a source of hope and encouragement for us all.
	We must also remember that, thanks to the work of the Policing Board, recruitment rates are even higher than recommended by Patten. More Catholics are joining the PSNI than Patten envisaged, but more Protestants are doing so too. We need to look at overall recruitment levels again, and not focus only on what can be achieved under the 50:50 policy.
	The Patten recommendations suggested that 340 new recruits, from both the Catholic and Protestant communities, would join the police every year, but the actual recruitment level is higher, having reached as many as 540 in one year. That shows that the chances of joining the police have improved for everyone, including young Protestants. Of course, the critics of 50:50 never admit that there has been a real step change in the numbers of young Protestants being recruited into the police every year.
	The quota is vital to achieving a sense of equal access and acceptability in policing. Reference has been made to what were called the historic or residual factors contributing to the long-standing Catholic under-representation in the old RUC. Whether one puts the so-called "chill factor" down to the perception in the Catholic community that the old RUC was the arm of Unionist state, or to the effects of the GAA's rule 21, it is not surprising that Catholics had little motivation to join the force. The fear factor must also be taken into consideration.

Mark Durkan: I take the hon. Lady's point, in terms of my paying proper attention to my notes, but that should in no way detract from Sir John's findings on the RUC's failure to do its job and warn nationalists of threats to their lives. In the eyes of many nationalists, the RUC's unrepresentative nature is not entirely unrelated to such unresponsiveness. There are certain perceptions of, and feelings about, this issue in the Catholic community, and if we are to achieve the new beginning in policing, we must get beyond those prejudices and confine them to history. The 50:50 recruitment policy, which is only one dimension of the Patten plan, is part of that process. It is helping to change the face of policing, which is for the good of the whole community. Ever-increasing numbers are relying on the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
	As I have said, we need to view this policy in the context in which it came about. We need to understand that it is working and that, although some aspects of it may be proving painful, many more people are unsuccessful in their candidacy for the police service for reasons other than the 50:50 policy. No one seems to be getting too worried about the other reasons why people are not proving successful.
	Members have referred to other forms of employment, and let us be clear about the representation of the two communities in the public service work force. When I was a Minister, we identified an under-representation of Protestant workers in some lower grades of the civil service, and I took action. I acted properly to have that matter addressed, just as I acted properly to try to deal with the under-representation of Catholics in the senior civil service.
	We are taking the proper approach, which is why we need strong fair employment measures, but 50:50 has a particular purpose; it is serving that purpose and should not be messed about with, because a much bigger prize could be compromised.

Lorely Burt: I greatly appreciate how sensitive and controversial this issue is. As with many parapets, I put my head above this one with great trepidation, but it is right that I state our point of view.
	In his report on policing, Patten planned that the 50:50 recruitment process take place over 10 years, so we expect the policy to end in 2010. We hope that the devolution of policing functions to the Assembly will have occurred by then and that it will be able to end the 50:50 process of its own volition.
	There are some important issues, however, and one group suffering from the policy has not been mentioned this afternoon—people from ethnic minorities.

Lorely Burt: Human rights are important and Patten was correct to put them at the core of the report. We have to consider the human rights not only of recruits denied a job due, as the hon. Lady pointed out, to the policy of taking an equal number of people from two religious groups but of people on the street. The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) said that people on the streets do not mind about the background of the policeman standing in front of them, but I have to take issue with that claim, especially in respect of people from ethnic minorities, about whom I am particularly concerned.
	The fact that ethnic minorities come within the Protestant 50 per cent. of the recruitment process has taken its toll and affected their chances of being recruited as police officers on the streets of Northern Ireland. Members of the Indian community have told my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) that they have been discouraged not only from applying to the police but from reporting hate crimes, because they do not see members of their community in the service taking on board the discrimination they feel and dealing with the crimes that are perpetrated against them. So there are lots of rights to consider, and no one is pretending that the 50:50 policy is fair. I am sure that we all look forward to the end of that policy.
	The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) referred to some of the statistics. I understand that the Catholic community represents about 44 per cent. of the Northern Ireland community[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound) suggests that the figure might be higher, but that is the figure that I have and we have been trading figures all afternoon. The point that I am trying to make is that, even if we achieve 30 per cent. by 2010, the Catholic community will still be under-represented, but there will be some sort of critical mass with which people on the streets of Northern Ireland will be a lot more comfortable.

Lorely Burt: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and to the other hon. Gentlemen for the various statistics that are going to and fro. I still do not think that they detract from my basic argument that, for a short time, the wider community in Northern Ireland must be put before the interests of a certain number of the community. Perhaps some Unionist Members would agree that, if Sinn Fein were to join the Policing Board and actively engage with and support policing structures in Northern Ireland, the need for the policy would soon be ended, because people in the Catholic community would feel much more relaxed about making their applications.
	In conclusion, we recognise that the policy is far from ideal. A lot of work needs to be done. However, we must put up with it for a little longer and retain the hope that within a short period[Interruption.] Sorry, I did not hear the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson).

Lorely Burt: As for the time that it will take, regrettably, I have not brought my crystal ball into the Chamber with me this afternoon. As for the percentage, it should be for people who have more knowledge and skill than I have to put a figure on that. Certainly, if we reach 30 per cent. by 2010, we will achieve a great deal of what the Patten recommendations set out to achieve.

Lady Hermon: It has been a long and, at times, rather fractious debate, but, at the outset, I want to say that I endorse the remarks made by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) at the beginning of this long discussion. New clauses 6 and 7 are almost identical. New clause 7 stands in my name. I am not going to go over why we should press that to a vote this afternoon, but I would like to pick up on some of the remarks that have been made, particularly those made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), to which I must admit I took grave exception.
	I declare a particular interest in that I am married to a former Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Sir Jack Hermon. He was the Chief Constable from 1980 until 1989. During that time, we had no ceasefires at all. His deputy Chief Constable and many of his senior officers were of the Roman Catholic faith. They were enormously courageous men, and they were exclusively men, to have taken the risk that their decision to join the police servicethe RUC, as it was proudly knownbrought not only to them personally, but to their families. It was an onerous responsibility that they undertook with great enthusiasm and dedication.
	I must say that I find it utterly reprehensible that the hon. Member for Foyleperhaps Hansard will show that I have misheard the latter part of his speechhinted and suggested, most unfairly and grossly inaccurately, that it may perhaps have been the unrepresentative nature of the RUC that somehow contributed to paramilitary activity by loyalists targeting Catholics.

Lady Hermon: I appreciate the correction, then. Hansard will, of course, shed light on all the versions by tomorrow morning.
	On 50:50 recruitment, I am staggered that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the Social Democratic and Labour party can come to the House and defend that morally repugnant recruitment procedure for the police. I say that with some exasperation. I have brought a copy of the agreement with mean agreement that was endorsed and repeatedly quoted by the SDLP and an agreement for which I was proud to vote in 1998.
	One of the reasons why I was proud to vote for the agreement was the assurance that it contains, in black and whiteI have not invented this. That agreement was endorsed by thousands of people in referendums both in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. On page 16, under the heading Rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity, the agreement states: The partiesI understand that the SDLP was a party to the agreement, as was the British Government; we have a Minister present this afternoon
	affirm . . . the right to equal opportunity in all social and economic activity, regardless of class, creed, disability, gender or ethnicity.
	The agreement does not say in brackets, except recruitment to the Police Service. On the contrary, it continues, again on page 16:
	the British Government intends, as a particular priority . . . to promote equality of opportunity in relation to religion and political opinion.
	That is what I voted for in 1998, as did thousands of people, and the party of the hon. Member for Foyle. I was disgusted, to put it politely, when the British Governmentmy own Governmentlegislated to legalise religious discrimination in the recruitment of police officers no later than two years afterwards in the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000. The hon. Member for Belfast, East and his colleagues rightly want to abolish section 46 of that Act through new clause 6, and, likewise, I, the hon. Member for North Down, wish to see it abolished.
	The Government have pledged to respect human rights and repeatedly tell the country, and say internationally, how much they do so. They say how much it means to them that the 1997 Labour manifesto included a pledge to make the European convention on human rights part and parcel of our domestic lawI am most grateful that they did so.
	The obnoxious 50:50 recruitment procedure, which was legislated for by a British Government after the negotiation of the Belfast agreement and its commitments, was, indeed, tested in the High Court in Belfast some years ago. A young constituent of mine, Mark Parsons, was courageous enough to challenge the legislation. It was not the case that an exemption from the European convention on human rights was negotiated. The court acknowledged that the recruitment procedure was discriminatory and cut right across article 9 of the European convention on human rights, and upheld it only because of its temporary basis. If I remember correctly, that happened three years ago.
	The hon. Member for Foyle suggested that if anyone wished to challenge the procedure in Strasbourg, it would be upheld, but that is not the case. The procedure has been in place far too long for it to be temporary. It undermines the Belfast agreement enormously. The Government stand and wring their hands repeatedly and worry about why the Unionist electorate in Northern Ireland has turned against the agreement. It is because of the salami-slicing of everything that was promised to them and, especially, 50:50 recruitment.

Mark Durkan: The hon. Lady has effectively confirmed that the courts in Northern Ireland decided that the 50:50 policy as per Patten was permissible under the European convention on human rights. The policy is not there in perpetuity and its nature is clear. I thank the hon. Lady for clarifying that I was being misled on the derogation from the European convention on human rights. The derogation is actually from European employment law, and I mentioned that there is a European Union employment equality directive that covers 50:50.

Stephen Pound: The hon. Lady would have heard the wise and humane words of the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt). Does she accept that a police service should look like the community it serves? There are occasionsin Chicago in the 1920s, in New York in the 1940s and in the Metropolitan police service todaywhen a quota system must be used, distasteful though it might be, because otherwise the police force will not look like the community it serves. If a force does not look like that community, it cannotand seldom doescommand the respect of the community.

Lady Hermon: I sigh with exasperation but, personally, I find any form of discrimination morally reprehensible. I shall not endorse the policy. My party, of all parties, needs to recruit more women to its ranks so that they can be elected. Discrimination in any shape or form is abhorrent and repugnant.
	Finally, if we reach the new clauses tabled by the hon. Member for Foyle they will appear rather hollow, given his mention of the support givendisgracefully, in my viewby the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to 50:50 recruitment. If any human rights organisation can sustain legalised religious discrimination, that undermines the confidence, particularly of the Unionist and Protestant community, in anything that it undertakes. It ill becomes the hon. Gentleman to move a new clause later to increase the powers of the Human Rights Commission, when he has just endorsed religious discrimination. I cannot countenance that.

Ian Paisley: This has been an important debate because it has raised issues that needed to be raised and discussed, and still need to be discussed. My party will press the motion.
	The Royal Ulster Constabulary, of all people, has been maligned in the debate. I rise because someone must stand up and make it clear that we salute the gallantry, the heroism and the sacrifice of the noble men of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. We also salute their wives and families, because when their husbands went out in the morning, they did not know whether they would return. Sometimes they returned crucified, with part of their limbs cut off by evil men. The time has come for the House to salute the gallantry of members of the RUC and tell the country that we pay them the tribute that needs to be paid to them.
	I have listened to the SDLP Members and to their defence of certain things that have been said, but I do not think the people of Northern Ireland will take as infallible what a police officer who was sent over from the Metropolitan police had to say about matters. One has only to look at what happened at that time in Northern Ireland and at some of the exposures that came afterwards to know that he was not a reliable witness.
	Today, as we look back, we need to realise that there is no justification for religious discrimination by anyone. It is all very well for SDLP Members to say in the House, It's only a little thing, and you can forget about it. If that attitude had been taken when they raised matters that were sometimes little things, they would not have had the support of Protestant people who believed that there should not be religious discrimination of any kind.
	Ulster stands at a crossroads. The time has come when the people of Ulster should have the opportunity to have full civil and religious liberty for all menall men equal under the law, all men equally subject to the law. The sooner we achieve that, the better for us all. We surely should be able to unite on that subject. I trust that tonight, when the debate is finished and we push ahead with other matters, we will keep in mind the gallantry and the heroism of those who fought and died to give us the freedom to stand here and say what we can say in a free House and a free Parliament.

Sammy Wilson: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was here for the speeches by SDLP Members, who said that something within the RUC put people off joining, which was not the case. Now we have instituted an arrangement that discriminates against people from the Protestant community.

Sammy Wilson: The hon. Gentleman's party confirmed our worst fears about the Patten proposals, namely that their desire to please republicanslet us face it; that was their purposemeant getting rid of experienced officers, thus leading to skills shortages, which had to be made up by recruiting officers from the mainland. No officer from England or Scotland would have been prepared to have their job decided on the basis of their religion, so the SDLP had to accept that 50:50 would not apply to recruiting people from England or Scotland because they would not have taken the insult of having their religion examined before they were found to be qualified for a job. However, paper-thin arguments continue to be made in favour of 50:50 discrimination.

Mark Durkan: The hon. Gentleman needs to realise the difference between 50:50 recruitment of fresh, new police officers for training and seeking existing, trained detectives from other forces.

Shaun Woodward: This has been an important debate that has raised several issues. While I hope to persuade hon. Members not to press the new clause to a vote, I also wish to put on record that I respect the very different views that have been expressed across the House, even though I disagree with some of them.
	I also put on record that I share the emotions, the commitment and the rational argument advanced by the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley)? Our discussions this afternoon should do nothing to besmirch the courage, the gallantry or the reputation of former members of the RUC, or, for some, the enormous sacrifice that they and their families made. I do not wish to do anything other than echo what the right hon. Gentleman said about that.
	Let us be absolutely clear about this. The 50:50 policy is an exceptional policy and a temporary measure to enable the PSNI to be representative of its community and to do that in a reasonable time frame, with the target of increasing its Catholic composition to 30 per cent., we hope by 201011. The policy is temporary and exceptional. I remind hon. Members of the comments in the Patten report, whether they agree or disagree with its conclusions. It stated:
	the main problem facing policing in Northern Ireland has been the political divide between the Protestants/Unionists and Catholics/Nationalists and the identification of the police with unionism and the British state in the minds of many nationalists.
	The report went on to say:
	This has undoubtedly had some effect on the rate of applications to join the police from the Catholic/Nationalist community, as has the active discouragement, sometimes including intimidation, which many potential recruits from that community have experienced.
	Why did that matter? It mattered because, putting aside the conclusions, Patten said:
	community policing is impossible if the composition of the police service bears little relationship to the composition of the community as a whole.
	I also agree with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound). Patten said:
	The point is that communities as a whole should see themselves as having a stake in the police service as a whole. If all communities see the police as their police, there will be a better, cooperative partnership between community and police, and therefore more effective policing.
	It was in that context that Patten said:
	It is the imbalance between the number of Catholics/Nationalists and Protestants/Unionists which is the most striking problem in the composition of the RUC.
	He rightly tried to reconcile the issue of human rights with his proposals for 50:50 recruitment.

Shaun Woodward: I am afraid that, as the hon. Gentleman and other members of his party have left me very little time to respond to the debate, I cannot take his intervention.
	Patten also said:
	The proposals that are made on composition of the police service are an essential part of meeting the five tests
	that is, the human rights tests. For him, those human rights tests involved doing something to change the fundamental composition of the police force, because only a tiny fraction of the RUC was drawn from the Catholic community. Fewer than 8.3 per cent. were from that community in 1998. Today, that figure stands at nearly 20 per cent., with some 57,000 applications having been received to join the PSNI.
	I recognise the arguments that have been put forward today about principle, and that the tools being used to achieve this end might not be the ones that we would use if we were in an ideal position. The fact of the matter remains that we did not start from an ideal position but from one in which only a tiny fraction of a community was represented in the police force. To change that imbalance, we put forward these proposals.
	The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) referred to a range of statistics. It is important that we are not selective, so I want to put on record the basic statistics. In the first eight competitions, more than 28,000 applications from non-Catholics were received, of which 541 will have been rejected directly as a result of the temporary provisions. In other words, less than 2 per cent. of all non-Catholic applicants will have been rejected as a direct result of the 50:50 provisions. The latest campaign has seen the highest number of applications yet for the PSNI, with 7,691 applicants competing. This is the critical point, and the reason that people are being rejectednearly 8,000 applicants are chasing fewer than 500 places. That is the real reason that so many qualified candidates from both community backgrounds are unsuccessful.
	The Government are keenly aware of how the temporary 50:50 measures also impact on ethnic minority recruitment, and we have noted the Chief Constable's concerns. As the Patten report makes clear, however, the imbalance between the numbers of Catholics and Protestants was the most striking problem in the composition of the police, above issues such as gender, ethnic minority and gay and lesbian representation, which have also been raised, though the commission rightly recognised their importance. Ethnic minorities make up 0.27 per cent. of PSNI officers. Of course, that should be considered in the context of a community in which ethnic minorities, including Travellers, comprise less than 0.5 per cent. of workers.
	We firmly believe that these temporary measures are justified to correct an acute historical imbalance in the composition of the PSNI. Let me assure all Members, however, that the measures will not stay in place a day longer than is necessary. We are firmly committed to achieving a progressive increase in the Catholic representation in the police servicefor us, the figure should be 30 per cent. by 201011. We are on course to achieve that, and it is absolutely right to be able to do so. In less than five years, under 50:50 temporary provisions, Catholic composition has increased from 8.3 per cent. to nearly 20 per cent., and it is rising.
	In the same period, female composition has also risen from 13 per cent. to over 20 per cent. We should be cautious about making comparisons between gender and religious background, as the issues are not the same. That was acknowledged by Patten, who recognised the need to increase the number of women in the police service but focused on the more important need of addressing the imbalance of community background in order to have effective policing. Critically, he recognised that the provisions should be temporary, lasting until the target had been reached.
	Hon. Members will be aware that these are exceptional measures that are reviewed triennially and will expire unless specifically renewed by an order. The current order allows for their continuation until 28 March 2007, at which time Members will have a further opportunity, both in this House and another place, for detailed scrutiny of these temporary provisions.
	Having carefully considered the amendments, and in light of the review this summer, the consultation that will take place with all the parties and the debates that will take place in this and another place later this year and early next year, before March, I ask Members to withdraw them. I respect their arguments, and we might disagree, but ultimately, achieving a balance of 30 per cent. is not only good for members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland but right for the communities of Northern Ireland.

Peter Robinson: I shall not attempt, in the 30 seconds that remain, to wind up such a wide-ranging debate. I shall simply say that the Minister has been careless with statistics. The figures that he produced were inaccurate. Before the introduction of the 50:50 policy, the numbers had already increased from nearly 9 per cent. to well into double figures. The 50:50 policy therefore cannot take the credit for the increase.
	It being Six o'clock, The Chairman, put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to order [19 April].
	The Committee proceeded to a Division.

Martin Caton: What I should like to do in this Adjournment debate is, first and foremost, to celebrate the quality of landscape and environment in the Gower peninsular, the first designated area of outstanding natural beauty in Britain and the area that I have the privilege to represent in this House. I also want to celebrate the beauty and diversity of the 40 or so other AONBs in England and Wales. I shall begin by focusing a little on the history of our AONBs, and then I shall look to the future.
	Our story goes back to the period immediately after the second world war, and to the establishment of the Hobhouse committee that looked at the need to protect and enhance our most valuable landscapes and habitats. Hobhouse reported in 1947, and that report led to the legislation that became the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, which established both national parks and AONBs. Even then, national parks and AONBs were accepted as being equal in quality and value to the nation, but they were deliberately treated quite differently. The decision to treat them differently came directly from the Hobhouse report, which stated:
	There are many areas of fine country in England and Wales, which are not included in our selection of National Parks, but yet possess outstanding landscape beauty, are often of great scientific interest and, in many cases, include important holiday areas. While, in the main, they do not call for the degree of positive management required in National Parks . . . their contribution to the wider enjoyment of the countryside is so important that special measures should be taken to preserve their natural beauty and interest. We recommend . . . that the Ministry of Town and Country Planning should designate areas of high landscape quality, scientific interest and recreational value as Conservation Areas.
	Under the terms of section 87 of the 1949 Act, those conservation areas became AONBs. Even then, Hobhouse's belief that these areas required no positive management was mistaken, as became clearer over the following decades. Indeed, that is especially clear if one compares the history of the national parks with that of the AONBs. In practice the 1949 Act did little more than create the designation area of outstanding natural beauty and make consequential provision for land use planning arrangements. Indeed, considering the flimsiness of their foundation, the most remarkable feature of our AONBs between 1956, when Gower was designated, and the end of the millennium was how much had been achieved in resisting the worst excesses of exploitation and neglect, without proactive management and earmarked resources. That said, the history of countryside protection during that period was very patchy.
	After a lot of lobbying, the chairman of the National Parks Commission, Mr. Strang, and his secretary, Mr. Abrahams, signed Gower's designation order on 9 May 195650 years ago next month. We in Gower intend to celebrate that anniversary over the rest of the year.
	So what is so special about Gower that led to it earning this early recognition, before other candidate regions? It is very special in many ways. Even though it covers only 72 square miles, its 23 miles of magnificent coastline are now designated as heritage coast. Geological variety has given us a matching variety in landscape. On the south coast, we have marvellous carboniferous limestone scenery stretching between Worms Head and Oxwich bay. By way of contrast, in the north we have salt marshes, dune systems and the Loughor estuary. In between, inland Gower is notable for its attractive wooded valleys and its large areas of common, dominated by sandstone heath ridges and, most especially, the soaring sweep of Cefn Bryn.
	The Gower peninsula AONB includes 25 sites of special scientific interest, five candidate special areas of conservation, three national nature reserves, one special protection area, one Ramsar site, three local nature reserves, 23 Wildlife Trust reserves and 67 ancient woodland sites. It is also home to 83 scheduled ancient monuments and sites. Some 30 per cent. of the AONB is designated as historic landscape, and there are more than 100 listed buildings there. We have some 240 miles of public rights of way. All our beachesthey are beautiful beachespassed the bathing water regulations' mandatory and guideline standards. Last year, four Gower beaches got blue flags, and a further six got green coast awards.
	We are also fortunate in that, in the years since the 1930s, some of the most valuable landscape areas in Gower have been acquired by the National Trust. Notable flora and fauna species on the coast include chough, peregrine and the rare yellow whitlow grass, which, I think, is still unique to Gower. The common land in the AONB also provides a valuable habitat for rare plants and animals, including southern damselfly, nightjar, black bog ant, marsh fritillary and the palmate newt. Growing on the commons we also find various heather species, royal fern, bristle bent grass, a range of mosses, bilberry, deer grass and three-lobed crow foot.
	During Tuesday's debate on the Commons Bill the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), who will respond to this debate, highlighted the contribution that our commons make to national biodiversity. Gower is, literally, proof of that statement. Its commons are wildlife treasure chests, simply because they have not been agriculturally improved or subjected to regular pesticide or fertiliser treatment. However, they have come under various pressures in recent years, with different problems affecting different commons, such as increased use of artificial nutrients, overgrazing on some places and under-grazing on more, and land being torn up by motorcycle scramblers and other off-road vehicles. The Gower commons initiative has improved the situation enormously over the past five years, especially through the strategic placing of cattle grids to achieve better stock management.
	So that is a brief picture of Gower in facts and figures, and although such a run-down can be pretty impressive in its own way, it does not really capture the unique quality of Gower, nor its clear and historical identity as a separate and special place. It is right on the doorstep of the old industrial city of Swansea, yet city residents and visitors alike almost all comment on the feelings of isolation and remoteness that they experience in Gower, despite the fact that they are rarely more than 20 miles from the city centre.
	Although close proximity to Swansea creates many problems and pressures for Gower, in conservation, environmental and socio-economic terms, the contrast with its urban neighbour is part of what makes Gower special. From the point of view both of residents of Swansea and Gower and of visitors, the relationship between rural Gower and urban Swansea can be complementary: Swansea provides an ever-widening range of cultural, educational and leisure opportunities alongside Gower's contribution of rare natural beauty, fantastic beaches and splendid walks.
	Over the decade since Gower's birthday, in a process that started slowly, about 40 AONBs have secured designation, ranging from the Solway coast to the north Wessex downs, from the Norfolk coast to the Cotswolds and from the Cornish coast to the Clwydian rangetheir beauty matched only by their diversity. Over most of the past half-century, however, our AONBs have struggled under the inadequacies of the original legislation, which failed to provide them with management and financial resources similar to those for national parks. The unfairness and impracticality of that situation became more and more apparent as the decades went by and it became clearer and clearer that AONBs were not just the little sisters of national parks; indeed, the Cotswolds AONB is larger than any national park and in terms of tourist numbers, the Chilterns AONB receives more visitors than most national parks.
	The financial and legislative weakness of the AONB system came into proper focus only in the last few years of the 20th century, with the Countryside Commission undertaking a fuller review of the working of AONBs, the establishment of an England and Wales AONB association and the distillation of some clear reform objectives. Thankfully, at roughly the same time, a legislative hook came alongthe Countryside and Rights of Way Bill. Inside and outside Parliament, we campaigned for amendments to require statutory management plans for our AONBs and the Government accepted the principle and introduced the necessary changes, which is hugely to their credit and the most important change for AONBs in their 50-year history.
	In recent years, we have seen a sea change in the status and professionalism of the management of our AONBs, which can and must be built upon. We have seen the Chilterns and Cotswold AONBs set up conservation boards under the powers provided to them in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, invaluable for AONBs that fall within a number of local authorities. The powers and responsibilities in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act have been backed up with financial resourcesuntil now at leastthrough the Countryside Agency in England, superseded by English Nature, and the Countryside Council for Wales in my part of the world. The main funding vehicle in Wales that has benefited Gower is the sustainable development fund, which is being used to support 22 valuable green projects in the Gower AONB.
	The word partnership has perhaps become too much a part of our conversations in this place and has been frequently used in the jargon of politics in recent years. But sometimes there are theories at the bottom of our jargon, and partnership really is the key to success for AONBs. That means, first and foremost, partnership at local level, involving local authorities and the local people who live in and around the AONB, encouraging them to maintain a sense of involvement and ownership, acknowledging that the aims of conservation and sustainability do not have to be in conflict with the needs of agricultural production or other forms of economic development, including tourism. That is not only possible but practical, as long as everyone recognises the exceptional quality of the landscape in which they work, although it also requires conservationists and environmentalists to acknowledge that sustainability does not mean petrification.
	We also need an effective working partnership between the different AONBs in the country, with best practice actively disseminated and ideas readily exchanged. That is already happening through the excellent functioning of the National Association for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which goes from strength to strength, and which I am delighted to report is holding its annual conference in Swansea this year, so that it can take a leading role in celebrating the golden anniversary of Gower's designation. My hon. Friend the Minister has been invited and I hope that he and Carwyn Jones, his opposite number in the National Assembly, will be able to attend and can take the opportunity to go to Gower and enjoy its marvels.
	There must be partnership between the AONBs, the responsible local authorities and the legislature and the Government, whether the National Assembly for Wales or Westminster and Whitehall for the UK. The all-party group on AONBs, which I chair in the House, plays a small part in aiding communication between parliamentarians, the AONBs and Ministers.
	Most people involved with AONBs believe the future is far brighter than it appeared even a few years ago, but of course that does not mean that we should take anything for granted or become complacent. That was brought home to me just last year when the Welsh Assembly Government, in a consultation exercise about local government powers, proposed that the requirement to produce management plans for AONBs should be removed, just five years after the CROW Act had introduced that vital measure. Thankfully, they were convinced that that would have been a very big step in the wrong direction.
	Even now, the people who care about our AONBs still have their worries about future financing, when local authority budgets are squeezed; about the fact that AONBs are funded on an annual basis, when it would be more efficient to do so on a three-year programme; about how AONB interests will be picked up in the new regional spatial planning strategies in England and the unitary development plans in Wales; and, perhaps most importantly, about the fragility of some agricultural sectors, recognising the importance for biodiversity of appropriate stocking levels, especially on the uplands. However, we can deal with all those things by working together under the new legislation.
	As we said on the AONB association's display board that we put up in the Upper Waiting Hall, when we were campaigning for AONB provisions in the CROW Bill,
	It's a new dawn for AONBs.
	Unfortunately, the photograph used to show the sun rising, which I did not see until the day, was of Worms Head at Rhossili in my constituencyof course, Rhossili is on the west coast of Britain and the photograph was actually of the sunset. That was an unfortunate mistake, but I was sure then, and am even more sure now, that that was not necessarily a bad omen.
	I should like to finish, still on beautiful Rhossili, by quoting from the man sometimes described as the Gower poet, Vernon Watkins, the close friend of Dylan Thomas, whom Dylan believed was the better poet. It is an extract from the poem simply called Rhossili, which conveys the awe and the inspiration that fine landscape and the natural environment can evoke in us:
	Pushed out from the rocks, pushed far by old thought, long into night, under starlight,
	At last, tired from my coastal labouring, I come to you, sleepless Rhossili.
	I have cut through the mirror-bright sea in the long, slender boat with two paddles,
	And ground in the sand. Dawn breaks. I stare, amazed, at the marvel.
	Coiled sand, gold mountains, grass-tufted dunes, unending, rising, descending,
	And the cat-spotted, wind-crafty tide, spitting serpent-white tongues drawn slack,
	Soon reaching the barnacled wreck, quivering, recoiling, bending
	Stung eyes to the rasping whisper of gongs, of songs that will not run back.
	Rhossili! Spindle of the moon! Turning-place of winds, end of Earth, and of Gower!
	It is that awe, that inspiration at the sight of outstanding natural beauty that we celebrate above all at this year's anniversary in Gower.

Jim Knight: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) on securing this debate on the good work done in our areas of outstanding natural beauty. He is a tireless champion of that work. He has spoken with such eloquence, and my Department certainly appreciates his work as the chairman of the all-party group. Clearly, like me, he is influenced in valuing our AONBs by the beautiful example that he has in his constituency. My constituency, based deep in Dorset in the south-westa region blessed with numerous and varied outstanding landscapeshas persuaded me of the importance of properly conserving and managing them and of the important role that they play in society and the benefits that they bring.
	I recall my holiday on the Gower peninsula with my family some 10 years or so ago. We spent a lovely week camping there, and we enjoyed the very special landscape, the magnificent coastline and the wonderful beaches that my hon. Friend has talked about. I like to think that I have the nicest constituency in the country, but perhaps I had better define that country as England and leave my hon. Friend to claim the same for Wales.
	I also note my hon. Friend's interest in the Commons Bill. There may still be an opportunity for him to serve on the Committee that considers that Bill if he is enthusiastic to do so, and I am sure that he could let the appropriate people know of that enthusiasm if he is keen.
	I am grateful to my hon. Friend and to the National Association for AONBs for inviting me to the celebrations in July to mark the 50th anniversary of the Gower as our first area of outstanding natural beauty. I certainly intend to accept that invitation and I look forward to renewing my acquaintance with Gower. If I am given a choice between a conference and enjoying the landscape, I will certainly opt for the landscape.
	My hon. Friend will, of course, be aware that my responsibilities extend only to those areas of outstanding natural beauty on the English side of the border and so I hope that he will forgive me if I concentrate on the English areas of outstanding natural beauty. I fully recognise that most of the issues of concern are similar in both England and Wales.
	I thank my hon. Friend for his recognition of the high regard in which the Government hold AONBs, as well as our other designated landscapes, and of the increased funding that we have been able to provide for AONBs. Since 2000, funding for them from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has increased steadily, via the Countryside Agency, and last year amounted to more than 9 million. Additionally, and in keeping with a manifesto commitment, I introduced a sustainable development fund for AONBs last year amounting to 3.5 million. That equates to approximately 100,000 for each of the English AONBs. The fund aims to meet the purpose of AONBs by encouraging individuals, community groups and businesses to co-operate together to develop practical and sustainable solutions to the management of their activities. It is administered with a light touch by the Countryside Agency and I am sure that it will continue to be administered in that way by Natural England, its successor.
	I am glad that AONB management plans, statutorily introduced by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, as my hon. Friend reminded us, are providing a real focus for action and helping to facilitate co-operative working. I am pleased that I have avoided the use of the word partnership, to please my hon. Friend. The preparation of those plans has demonstrated the importance of a whole range of partners coming together to contribute to the vision and the practical management of each AONB. In delivering the goals that the management plans have set, it is equally important to move forward with that co-operation.
	In the new delivery landscape, it will be important for our AONBs to work even more closely with Natural England than they have been used to doing with the Countryside Agency, English Nature and the Rural Development Service. In the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, we took powers to enable DEFRA, in suitable circumstances, to delegate delivery functions to AONBs, whether they are managed by joint committees or conservation boards. We also need to see AONBs aligning their actions with the priorities that are set out in the various regional strategies and frameworks, some of which my hon. Friend mentioned.
	As further evidence of the Government's commitment to our finest landscapes, I would point to the guidance that we produced a year ago drawing the attention of a wide variety of public bodies to their statutory duty to have regard to the purposes of AONBs and national parks when undertaking their own functions. I believe that that guidance has been generally well received. It has pulled requirements from a number of legislative sources into a single publication that has raised awareness of protected landscape issues and responsibilities to such landscapes. Previously, in some cases, that information was not particularly well known. Natural England will monitor how that works and will report on any significant problems.
	I would also like to remind the House that the first two AONB conservation boardsfor the Chilterns and the Cotswoldswere established in December 2004 under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. They can provide for a more joined-up approach for large AONBs that cross a number of local authority boundaries. Early evidence suggests that the conservation boards have hit the ground running and are demonstrating the benefits of their new status.
	Landscape is always changing through a mixture of human and natural intervention. The pressures on landscape today are many and varied. They include the effects of climate change, social and economic developments, changes in farming and land management techniques, and peoples' increased mobility. My hon. Friend referred to some of the current and future concerns of AONBs. However, I can assure him that I remain committed to our finest landscapes and take every opportunity to defend them and expound their virtues when they are threatened.
	The UK has recently signed the Council of Europe's European landscape convention, which aims to promote the protection, management and planning of all landscaperural, urban and peri-urban. I hope that we will soon be able to ratify it. We do not think that that will require immediate changes to policy or legislation because the UK already has such a good record in the area. However, we will use the convention to help to guide future policy in the normal course of review, which can only help to raise the profile of landscape to the same level as other considerations in many areas of our work.
	I said right at the start that I was already familiar with the benefits provided by our finest landscapes for the past 50 years. They not only possess intrinsic beauty in many varied ways, but provide the facility for many forms of recreation, such as simple relaxation and reflection, walking and ridingI remember getting very wet riding in the Gower peninsula on that holiday with my familygetting close to nature, or undertaking more vigorous pursuits. Those, in turn, provide unseen mental and physical health benefits. There are obvious physical health benefits of going to the gym, but the mental health benefits of combining that with getting outdoors among the trees and wildlife are much greater. That is why many thousands of visitors come to the areas each year and stimulate the local and national economies. Of course, our landscapes have been the source of inspiration for artists, poetswe just heard a wonderfully recited poemand authors, both past and present. They also provide a living for those who work on the land.
	I pay tribute to all those who work hard to maintain and champion the areas. I pay particular tribute to the work of the National Association for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials consult that excellent organisation frequently and have a fine relationship with its representativeslong may that continue. I will continue to champion AONBs and know that my hon. Friend will continue to do so. I look forward to joining in the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the first area of outstanding natural beauty designation later this year.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Seven o'clock.